“When I see how on edge we still are after 28 September, I realise how deeply the trauma has affected the whole organisation”, says vice dean Maarten Frens. He has worked at Erasmus MC as a researcher since 1996 and has been primarily responsible for education in recent years. “We now talk to each other more often. And it’s not like we hadn’t seen a lot already. Just look at the emergency department – there are threats of physical violence almost every weekend, and sometimes violence actually happens. The fact that we’re used to a lot and are now reacting so intensely, shows just how deep the trauma runs.”
On 28 September 2023, a deadly shooting occurred at Erasmus MC. Earlier that day, the perpetrator had shot and killed his neighbour and her daughter. Later, he moved to Erasmus MC, where he killed lecturer Jurgen Damen, later L. set fire to the Education Centre. Medical student Fouad L. is being prosecuted for the murders and arson.
Nowadays, Frens enters the hospital without a second thought. Second-year medical student Suze Nodelijk and fifth-year student Frederique Verbeek, former chair of the Medical Faculty Association Rotterdam (MFVR), feel the same. Returning to the Education Centre at Erasmus MC helped all three of them. Suze returned to the quiet room where she was trapped that day, Verbeek, as chair of the association, threw herself into helping others, and Frens began working on his laptop in the Education Centre, where he could hear students laughing and returning to normal.
28 september 2023
As a new first-year student, Suze had no idea what was normal at Erasmus MC. On 28 September, she had been slightly late for her anatomy class, so she went to study in the quiet room at the back of the education centre for her first exam. A message came through in the first-year Medicine group chat: “A lecturer has been shot in Gk.” Not much later, the victim turned out to be teacher and GP Jurgen Damen. Gk is a building near the metro station, about a ten-minute walk away. “I didn’t know where that building was –maybe it was on the Woudestein campus. I didn’t know anyone in the quiet room. Everyone was getting messages but kept studying. The panic really started when a girl came in and said: ‘The shooter is here.’ A few guys ran chairs against the window, but it didn’t break. They eventually broke open a tilted window by hanging from it. We had to jump one and a half metres down. We caught each other. Once we were outside, there was still so much uncertainty.”
For the then-new MFVR board, Gk seemed far away. After the first reports, the board immediately got to work, turning the internal bar, ’t Vat, into a temporary shelter. “The police quickly arrived. They asked us if we could help identify the students who had been in the classroom where the shooting took place. We know many people through the associations, so we were able to make sure those students received help immediately. The police left, and only then did it become clear that the shooter was heading our way. We all ducked for cover. I hid in the filing cabinet, others in the small kitchen – rooms without windows. I didn’t hear a gunshot, but soon someone knocked on the door, saying: ‘Fire, run!’” Through an emergency exit, they made their way to the terrace, past the large glass window. “I didn’t see anything, but if someone had wanted to hurt us, we would have been incredibly vulnerable. We ran underneath the helipad, where Fouad L. was arrested five minutes later.”
On the fourteenth floor, Frens walked to the window to check if the reports of a fire were true. The heavy plumes of smoke confirmed it. Earlier that afternoon, the crisis team had gathered here to assist the police with information about the building and possible suspects. “We had to consider who might be behind the attack. The initial thought was a colleague or a student because the locations were so focused on education. The fact that it later turned out to be indeed someone from ‘within’ made the trauma worse, I think. And because it happened here, for many people their second home.”
Step by step, day by day
How do you resume your studies after fearing for your life in that building? How do you return to work when a student targeted your institution? How do you explain to your loved ones that you’re alive and safe? For Frens and Verbeek, the first week was all about managing, discussing, and organising for others. One of Verbeek’s fellow board members stayed the night; they had experienced the day together and talked late into the night. Suze was picked up by her brother and spent the night at her parents’ house to recover.
“I cycled home around 3.30 am”, Frens recalls. “Exams were scheduled for the next day, those were difficult decisions.” At 2.27 am, Frens’ team emailed all students, informing them that the Education Centre would be closed for the time being, where they could get help, and that a gathering would take place at De Doelen the following day.
All three appreciated that gathering. Being together helped. “Someone from Victim Support approached me there”, says Suze. “I tried to remain calm, but it was such a relief to have someone acknowledge that you’ve been through something intense. It was a kind of confirmation that it was okay not to be okay. In that quiet room, I had thought: I’ve just started this amazing study, and now it’s over after just three weeks. I was so angry that this could be my end, because that thought does cross your mind.” To get away from everything, she and her mother escaped for a week to Zeeland
Rebuilding the sense of belonging
Erasmus MC feels like a big place, but if it were a village, it would be a small one, Frens says. “A place where you can always find each other and be there for one another.” He refers to a poem by medical student Noor de Wijs, about how Erasmus MC no longer felt like a second home for a while. The certainty of a safe place had disappeared. “We’ve since reclaimed the Education Centre as our own.”
Talking about the events has been crucial for all three – both with people who were there on 28 September and with friends and family who weren’t. “That will really help me later, for example with difficult resuscitations or other intense situations”, says Verbeek.
Suze sought out two second-year students who had been in the same quiet room, with the help of her mentor. “I had such a strong need to talk to people who had been through the same thing. I didn’t know many people at that point, and my classmates weren’t there. After the events, I wandered around outside for an hour and a half alone. I didn’t know anyone. With the support of a friend from a year above, I went back to the quiet room. That allowed me to turn the page and move on. I now have a really nice group of friends here.”
One year after the attack
Emotional recovery takes time and attention, but that’s not the only thing staff at Erasmus MC are working on. The questions of how this could happen and what the university could have done still linger. Earlier this year, it became clear that Erasmus MC is conducting its own reflection on the events. “We are also reviewing existing procedures, looking at how we can detect concerning behaviour”, says Frens. “For some time, we’ve been looking at national regulations around dismissing students who aren’t suitable to be doctors. Currently, after completing their first-year credits, students can only be dismissed if they pose a danger to patients. We want to be able to prevent. We are working on this with all medical schools, although Erasmus MC is taking a leading role.”
Frens is still dealing with the aftermath of the attack almost daily. It could be about renovations in the Education Centre, colleagues who haven’t fully returned to work, the memorial being planned, or students who failed courses or even the year due to the events. It’s slowly becoming less frequent, but he will never forget 28 September 2023. “It is now part of the history of Erasmus MC.”
On Friday 27 September at 1.00 pm, a memorial service will take place, which will be live streamed in the hospital and Education Centre.
Special lighting at Erasmus MC will be shown on Friday and Saturday nights. Just like last year, two hands will be projected holding each other, with the date of the attack: 28 September 2023.
On Friday afternoon, Verbeek and Frens will attend the memorial service at Erasmus MC. Suze will follow the service via the livestream. The MFVR will be present in the lecture halls, offering tea, water, tissues, and support. “I won’t wear my MFVR uniform anymore because I’m no longer on the board. That feels strange, but then, this whole week does. I also don’t know what emotions Friday will bring”, Verbeek says. Suze shares that feeling. “But luckily, I’m not alone.”
