RGU student talks about surviving Dunblane massacre

It was 20 years ago this weekend


An Aberdeen survivor of the Dunblane massacre has come out and said that she both hates and pities the gunman Thomas Hamilton, 20 years after the shooting.

Aimie Adam, 25, was five years old when Hamilton opened fire in a gym hall at Dunblane Primary School, killing 16 pupils and one teacher. Scottish tennis player Andy Murray and his older brother Jamie were pupils at the school and they both narrowly escaped the disaster.

“It’s not normally how you would feel sorry for someone,” said Aimie, who is now studying mental health nursing at RGU. “I think it is more that I feel bad for him because his life was so terrible that he had to ruin other people’s lives, because he did.”

She said the experience “made me the woman I am – stronger” and it encouraged her to choose her degree.

Aimie said she doesn’t remember Hamilton walking into the gym hall or opening fire, but her PE teacher noticed through the smoke that she and another pupil had been shot, and urged them to crawl into an equipment cupboard to save themselves.

She had to have surgery to remove a bullet from her thigh but doctors also found a second bullet lodged at the bottom of her back.

Aimie now has a damaged sciatic nerve which means she has nerve damage and there is no feeling or movement in her right leg from the knee down.

She also said on her Good Morning Britain interview on ITV that, “he’s in the right place. He cannot ruin my life any more. I definitely haven’t let him.”

Aimie now is continuing her studies at RGU, and lives her student life to the fullest here in Aberdeen.

Kudos.