Michigan State shooting survivor also endured 2012 Sandy Hook massacre
A college student who survived the deadly shooting that killed three students and critically wounded five others Monday night at Michigan State University also lived through the horrific Sandy Hook massacre over 10 years ago.
“I am 21 years old, and this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through,” Jackie Matthews said in an emotional TikTok video shared early Tuesday.
Now a senior at MSU, Matthews was a student at Reed Intermediate School in Newtown, Conn., which was placed on lockdown on Dec. 14, 2012 when gunman Adam Lanza killed 20 students and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary school, which is just over the highway.
Speaking from a room across the road from where Anthony Dwayne McRae gunned down several MSU students just hours before, Matthews said she still suffers from a “full-blown PTSD fracture” in her lower back from the hours spent crouching in her classroom.
“The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible,” Matthews said.
“My heart goes out to all the families and the friends of the Michigan State shooting,” she continued.
“But we can no longer just provide love and prayers. It needs to be legislation, it needs to be action. It’s not okay. We can no longer allow this to happen. We can no longer be complacent.”
Follow The Post’s coverage of the tragic shooting at Michigan State University
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Matthews’ moving message was later reposted on Twitter, by Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts, where it drew thousands of retweets and comments.
“We’ve let down generations of children by letting this continue,” one user replied.
“No person should ever endure what you have endured, even once,” another wrote.
Matthews is not the only MSU survivor faced with the aftermath of their second school massacre. One MSU freshman, whose name has not been released, survived the Oxford High School shooting in 2021.
“I can’t believe this is happening again,” the student’s distraught mother told the Detroit Free Press in the aftermath of the Monday night carnage, which also took place on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland, Fla.
