{"id":159485,"date":"2023-10-05T11:40:29","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T09:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=159485"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:00","slug":"a-pitch-black-day-through-the-eyes-of-three-medical-students-all-i-could-think-was-this-cant-be-real-this-is-a-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/10\/05\/a-pitch-black-day-through-the-eyes-of-three-medical-students-all-i-could-think-was-this-cant-be-real-this-is-a-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"A pitch-black day through the eyes of three medical students: ‘All I could think was: this can\u2019t be real, this is a movie’"},"content":{"rendered":"

One floor below where Sam was sitting, Jurgen Damen was shot dead. Saad hid in a toilet for three quarters of an hour, thinking that his time was up. And Anne encountered the gunman as she was seeking refuge in the learning centre. These are the thoughts of three medical students on a pitch-black Thursday.<\/p>\n

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Saad hid in the toilet with a fellow student while the gunman ran through the learning centre.<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSaad Mellouk<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The Communication Skills lecture on the fifth floor of the Gk building had been under way for about an hour when, at about 2.30pm, Sam heard strange noises coming from the floor below. \u201cWe had no idea that it was gunshots. It sounded as though a cupboard had fallen over, and then as if someone had fallen to the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n\t

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The names of medical students Sam and Anne are fictitious because they prefer not to be approached personally about this story.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

The building, which is not used by patients but rather houses facility services and a number of classrooms, is mainly used for teaching practical skills, where students practise treatments on each other. \u201cWe thought that maybe someone had fainted. Then we also smelt fire.\u201d Sam assumed afterwards that this smell had come from Delfshaven, where the suspect had previously set fire to a house and shot dead his neighbour and her daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just went to see what was happening\u201d, says Sam. \u201cWe met another lecturer in the corridor who already knew about the shooting.\u201d Naturally, the class was stopped immediately and everyone had to go outside. \u201cAt that time, we still thought it might be an underworld assassination or something like that, but not a lecturer in our building. Outside we were immediately spoken to by police officers, who wanted to know what we\u2019d seen and heard. It was only then that we realised that we were talking about a lecturer and that completely changed the mood. It made everything far more scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Not under control\u2019<\/h2>

At the same time, medical student Saad was at a bake sale in the learning centre for the victims of the flooding in Libya, organised by student association Avicenna, . While there, he was called by a friend who could see students running out of the Gk building. \u201cI ran over to check that students who I knew were okay.\u201d In the meantime, the building had been sealed off. One of the emergency assistance providers said that the gunman was still on the loose. \u201cThe situation did not seem to be under control \u2013 not only because the gunman was still at large, but also because a crowd had formed at the scene of the crime. People were not being sent away in a coordinated manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

He quickly made his way back to the learning centre, where he found a member of staff and a group of students. Saad suggested that they clear the area. \u201cI had the feeling that I wasn\u2019t really being taken seriously, because the reaction was that we shouldn\u2019t cause a panic. I started to doubt myself: perhaps I was exaggerating the situation and the gunman would quickly be caught.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initial reports<\/h2>\n\t
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