Tragedy

It's a sad post today, I'm afraid. Yesterday, a man went on the rampage in West Cumbria and shot 12 people, injured 25, all at random. We were caught up in the proceedings. The whole area was in lock-down; people told to stay at home, don't go out on the roads. We were enjoying a day out on the Ratty railway and were suddenly beseiged with police and helicopters as they tried to catch the mad man. The boy and my dad were on a train and my mother and I were waiting at the other end with a picnic. The train was stopped - because it went under a road bridge and they didn't know where the man's car was heading, so decided to stop the train (it's an open-top train). We were trying to phone each other, but all the networks were busy, as people started to panic. A policeman told us, 'there's a major incident, people have been shot' and that's all we knew for about an hour, until more rumours and details were slowly emerging. In the end, after a couple of hours, the man was found (dead - he shot himself) about 100 yards away from where they had boarded the train.

Later, at home, we watched the news and began to realise the enormity of it all and the lucky escape we'd had. I phoned my friend, a midwife - she'd been taking a clinic yesterday morning in Seascale where this guy killed 3 people, pretty much yards from the doctor's practise. The doctors and health workers there had to go and deal with it all - totally traumatic for all concerned, as they knew the victims.

My heart goes out to the victim's family - one woman was simply on her way home with 2 shoppping bags. So random. So pointless. So tragic.