There have been several different kinds of therapies since the shooting to help Jackie Hegarty cope with PTSD. New mass shootings are a trigger, bringing her back to the day of the Sandy Hook shooting. Loud noises still startle her.
She was doing yoga with her second-grade class when the shooter opened fire right across the hall. She didn’t know what the gunshot sounds were. Kids in her class thought maybe a janitor dropped a trash can or somebody dropped a chair or a desk.
But no one could drop a trash can that many times.
“I remember running to my cubby and sitting on my backpack,” said Jackie, 17, who is a senior at Newtown High School. “And I remember being grateful that I was farther away from the door because I thought that the kid that was closest to the wall was going to get shot first.”
That Friday, like others, the children in her class got to bring in their favorite stuffed animals to watch movies with them. On that day, however, Jackie forgot hers.
Her class and teacher sat anxiously in the dark classroom. After the shooting ended and the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, had killed himself, police got to Jackie’s classroom and told them to cover their eyes as they were led out of the building. Along the way, Jackie opened her eyes. She doesn’t like to talk about what she saw.
“Once we were leaving, I was wondering how that could have happened so closely to me and that that could have been me and how come I’m walking out of the school right now and they aren’t,” she said. She is a triplet, and her two siblings survived.
Jackie said she would tell the Uvalde children to not bottle up their feelings and to talk to family and friends.
“Because it’s so important to talk this stuff through and know that their feelings are validated and that we’re going to do everything that we can to make sure that things like this don’t have to happen,” she said.
“We’ve been through a similar thing and we want them to know that we care about them and they’re loved,” Jackie said.