Injured Teacher in Bend School Shooting Breaks Silence, Correcting Reports She Shielded a Student; CNN Identifies 5-Year-Old as Youngest U.S. School Shooting Victim

BEND, Ore. — Nearly a week after the shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School, Becky Drury, the teacher gravely wounded in the attack, issued a statement on Oct. 21 through a family friend, describing for the first time what happened to her and correcting earlier reports that she had thrown herself over a student to protect the child.

Drury, 54, an inclusion educational assistant at the school, said she ran to see what was happening when she realized something was wrong — but immediately saw the shooter and rushed back to the classroom. "I turned to shut the door behind me, but the shooter was already there," she said in the statement, carried by The Associated Press. "Before I could do anything more, he shot me at close range and I fell to the ground."

Her left hand was nearly severed by a gunshot and her right arm was struck as well. Unable to get up or defend herself or others, she said, "I did the only thing I could do, which was to pretend to be dead in the hope he would not shoot me again."

Some news reports had suggested that Drury threw herself on top of one student to protect the child. Drury, who remains hospitalized, said she wanted to correct the record. "Accurate, respectful reporting is a truly important service that will help heal the wounds inflicted by that awful day," she said.

Separately, CNN reported on Oct. 21 on Rhoam Summer, the 5-year-old boy killed in the attack, identifying him as the youngest child killed in a U.S. school shooting. His family, speaking through attorneys, asked people around the world to draw a picture for him. "Rhoam was not a child art prodigy, but he had the purest heart and he put love into every scribble, splash or paint, or smashed leaf he tried to shape," the family's statement said.

The attack took place on Oct. 15, when Griffin J. John II, a 16-year-old former student, blasted his way through locked doors with a shotgun and attacked a special education classroom, killing three children — ages 5, 8 and 11 — and a teacher, and critically injuring a 7-year-old girl. Police have said another teacher threw her phone at the gunman and wrestled with him before a father who followed him into the building shot him dead.

CNN noted the two deadliest elementary school shootings in U.S. history: the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, whose child victims were 6 and 7 years old, and the 2022 Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where the 19 children killed were between 9 and 11.

The Bend school district reopened on Oct. 21 for the first time since the shooting, with dozens of officers on hand at each school to welcome children back, the Bend Police Department said.

Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图：美国犹他州American Fork的Harrington小学教学楼（资料图，非事发学校）。照片：Tricia Simpson，CC BY-SA 3.0，经Wikimedia Commons。Photo: Harrington Elementary School in American Fork, Utah (file photo; not the school in the story). Photo: Tricia Simpson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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