One Michigan State Shooting Survivor Is Also a Sandy Hook Shooting Survivor

On Monday night, a gunman shot multiple people at Michigan State University in Lansing. It’s an all-too common occurrence in American, especially on school campuses. Still, I wasn’t prepared to see a TikTok from Jackie Matthews, a MSU student, explaining that she also survived the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Matthews was across the street from one of the shooting sites when she made her video at about 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning. “I am 21 years old and this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through. Ten years and two months ago I survived the Sandy Hook shooting,” Matthews said.

At least three students are dead at the Lansing, Mich., university and at least five more students are wounded. The gunman shot himself off campus.

Matthews said their body will always carry what happened in Newtown. “When I was crouched in the corner in school in Newtown, Conn., on 12/14/12, I was hunched in the corner with my classmates for so long that I actually got a PTSD fracture in my L4 and L5 in my right lower back,” Matthews said. “I now have a full-blown PTSD fracture that flares up any time I am in a stressful situation or anything occurs that’s aggressive like that.”

Matthews has joined a uniquely American generation of people who survived school shootings and still carry the aftereffects. “The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible,” Matthews said. “We can no longer just provide love and prayers. It needs to be legislation. It needs to be action.”

To add to Matthews’ call to action in a horrifying statistic, there have been more mass shootings than days in the calendar year so far in 2023, according to CNN. We wait with bated breath to see if any lawmakers will step up—though last week, several Republican congressman reportedly wore AR-15 pins to work in support of a gun manufacturer, so it’s safe to say nothing is going to change this time, either.