Survivor's blog: Hell on Utoeya

[gvstn]

I was horrified when I read this blog post by one of the survivor's of the shooting. Imagine how many families shared the same terror or worse.

There were several other people in the water, they had already swum a long distance. I could see that some had gathered next to what looked like some sort of floating device. Plenty of boats were picking up the people swimming. I swam, and I swam and I swam towards the floating device. I was screaming. Crying. Got cold. Wondering when I would drown. It got harder and harder. I prayed. I kept swimming. My arms got tired. I decided to change my swimming technique, swimming on my back just using my legs. I was sinking. I went back to breast stroke. For a while it seemed like the floatation device was moving away from me. I screamed. Begged them to wait for me. I may have been hallucinating. I swam a couple of hundred metres more before reaching the floatation device. We talked a bit. Told each other our names and where we come from. When the boats came close by, we screamed out for help, but they rescued the ones that were still swimming first. A man with a boat finally approached us. He threw life vests to us. I caught one. Put it on. I hung on to the floatation device until he came back to pick us up. We all got into the boat, and he started heading towards land. After a while his small boat started to take in water. I did everything I could to get as much water as possible out of the boat. I got tired. Another girl took over. We made it to land. We were given blankets. Tears started streaming down my face. I cried. A lady hugged me. It felt so good. I cried loudly. I gasped for breath. A man lent me his phone, and I quickly called my dad: “I am alive. I made it. I am safe.” I hung up. Cried some more.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1572645/Survivor%27s-blog:-Hell-on-Utoeya