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Jasper has lost his carefree outlook since the attack on Erasmus MC, but the experience will make him a better doctor

During the attack on Erasmus MC, medical student Jasper’s life changed in seconds. His recovery has now been going on for three years, and he doesn’t expect to return completely to who he was before. The approaching appeal is bringing back a lot.

Step by step, Jasper rebuilt his sense of safety after the attack on Erasmus MC, exactly three years ago this Monday. Going outside again, then walking as far as the entrance to Erasmus MC. Going inside for five minutes, then attending a class in person.

Any sense of security he had built up was wiped away 487 days after the attack. That was the day the proceedings against perpetrator Fouad L. began. There, L. said then that he had actually wanted to kill more people, and that students like Jasper could’ve been targets as well in a different scenario. With that in mind, Jasper is dreading the appeal, which begins on 12 November.

Fragments of that day

Jasper remembers the 28th of September 2023, the day of the attack on Erasmus MC, as clips from a film. In his memory, the seconds in the first clip last the longest.

That’s where Jasper is working as a student assistant in the classroom with his favourite lecturer. Gunman Fouad L. comes in, points the pistol with a green laser pointer at the lecturer and shoots. At that point, no one knows that L. has already murdered his next-door neighbour and her daughter.

Jasper flees the classroom to the Education Centre. A short while later, the Education Centre turns into a sea of flames as L. throws homemade Molotov cocktails there. The final image of the attack etched on Jasper’s retina is L.’s arrest.

Everything changed in seconds

To the outside world, the news surrounding the attack appeared to quiet down between September 2023 and the trial in 2025. For survivors and bereaved relatives, things were completely different.

“When teaching started again, I got back into it very quickly”, Jasper says. “Otherwise I would have had nothing left.” At first, he watched lectures from home. Going outside, let alone to the hospital, was too much. Later, when he went to Erasmus MC for a class, he was so exhausted for the rest of the day that he could do nothing but sleep.

His body was constantly on high alert, screaming at him that danger lurked around every corner. “It was terribly exhausting. Everything changed in seconds and it takes years to recover.” He calls the psychological help he received at the time ‘crisis management’. After a year, he started EMDR therapy. He is now still following a long-term programme to grieve and process what happened, and it is helping him.

“For the past six months, I have been living again rather than merely surviving”, he says with relief. “That doesn’t just mean doing enjoyable things, but also wanting to do them.” At the beginning of September, he played in a tennis tournament that he had partly organised himself – and won the final in his group. After skipping drinks, dinners and parties for so long because he wasn’t feeling well, a tennis weekend like that was a breath of fresh air. “Life outside my studies, real social life, had fallen away.”

A better doctor

Ultimately, the horrors of 28 September 2023 also produced some good memories, Jasper says. “Ideally, you’d want to forget everything about that day. But then I think about the support I and others received. For example, fellow students kept sleeping on my sofa because they didn’t want me to be alone. I am still so grateful to them for that. I had only just met them, and then we spent the most difficult period of our lives together.”

Jasper believes all these experiences will eventually make him a better doctor. “I have become more empathetic. I know what it is like to go through something, receive a lot of attention and then see that attention fade away. Understandably, people have to carry on with their lives, but at that time you may need the support even more. I have learned that small gestures can make the biggest difference. Just a small moment of asking: how are you really doing?” Jasper will begin his clinical placements in a year. He is looking forward to making a difference.

Yes, he thinks all these experiences will make him a better doctor. But there is a price to pay: “There is a Jasper before and after the shooting. I will never get the old Jasper back.”

What he misses most is his carefree outlook. Feeling safe everywhere. Throwing himself fully into student life. “During the Covid pandemic, I studied International Business Administration. When I worked in a care home, the idea of studying Medicine gradually emerged.” During his first degree and first year of Medicine, he lived at home. In the summer of 2023, he moved to Rotterdam and joined a student association. He was looking forward to a vibrant student life, but everything changed because of the attack a month later. “I carried on, I completed a degree. I went to therapy, I am doing everything. But it is not as though I have had a fun life over the past three years.”

Inspiration

Lecturer Jurgen Damen, who was shot dead in the attack, is a source of inspiration for Jasper. He has been ever since the very first class. “I was recently talking to other students about the first class we had with him. He came in wearing a three-piece suit and carrying one of those doctor’s bags. We all thought: this is going to be hell, what a strict lecturer. Then he started talking and laughing. Everyone was won over after that first class.”

Jasper himself plans to become a lecturer one day. “It will be really difficult to reach his level. He was such a personality. The way he taught, the knowledge he had. And the humour! When I talk about him with lecturers, we often end up laughing because he was so funny.”

On Jasper’s right arm, just below the edge of his T-shirt, are the words nog even volhouden (‘hang in there a little longer’), in Damen’s handwriting. “During a team outing, Damen had slipped a note to a colleague: for anyone who wants to hold on to that good feeling a little longer. The words felt appropriate.” The fact that Jurgen was convinced Jasper would become a good doctor still helps him. “That was already the dream back then – that he in particular saw it and said so.”

Right to speak helped

At the trial on 28 January 2025, Jasper addressed the court about how much Damen had meant to him, how he had experienced and survived the attack, and how difficult the months afterwards had been. Although speaking was emotionally demanding, it helped him enormously. “The more I spoke, the stronger I felt.” He received loud applause from the bereaved relatives and others in the public gallery. At the time, he did not notice any of it in the courtroom. He intends to exercise his right to speak again in November. “It is also possible that I will change my mind if it becomes too much.”

The coming months will be difficult for more bereaved relatives, survivors and others. Jasper has a tip for the people around them: “It is something small, but ask sincerely: how are you really doing? Or say: I was thinking about you, I hope you are holding up. That helps me a lot. It is important to feel seen.”

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