Teacher in Oregon shooting said she pretended to be dead to survive

A surviving teacher from the tragic massacre at Silver Rail Elementary School has spoken publicly for the first time, clarifying that she was shot before she had any chance to intervene and instead played dead to survive the classroom attack. Becky Drury, a teacher at the facility in Bend, Oregon, issued a detailed statement addressing contradictory early media accounts of her actions during the violence.

The shooting unfolded when a heavily armed teenager breached the Silver Rail campus. According to law enforcement and reporting detailed by the BBC, the attacker was identified as a former student at the school. Armed with a shotgun, the gunman fired shots outside before blasting through locked entry doors and entering a special-needs classroom.

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Oregon Teacher Describes Playing Dead During School Shooting | 1290 WJNO

Drury, who is 54 years old, recounted that she initially stepped outside to check on a disturbance. Upon spotting the gunman, she retreated toward her classroom.

"I turned to shut the door behind me, but the shooter was already there. Before I could do anything more, he shot me at close range and I fell to the ground,"

Becky Drury, Teacher, via WECT

She suffered devastating injuries, noting that her left hand was nearly severed and her other arm was severely harmed. Because she could not stand or defend anyone, Drury explained via Wect that she did the only thing possible to avoid further gunfire. Initial local reports had claimed Drury threw herself over a student to provide a shield, but her statement corrected the record, emphasizing she was incapacitated instantly.

The rampage claimed four lives before an armed bystander intervened. Killed in the attack were teacher Megan Lambert, 25, and three children, including five-year-old Rhoam Summer, along with victims aged eight and eleven. Another student, a seven-year-old girl named Saylor, was shot in the face and hospitalized in critical condition at Oregon Health & Science University.

Quick-thinking actions by other staff members and a parent helped curtail the slaughter. According to accounts compiled by MEAWW News, an uninjured teacher threw her mobile phone at the gunman and attempted to tackle him and strip away the weapon. The assault was ultimately cut short when a parent of two students at the school, who had pursued the suspect inside, fatally shot him just three minutes after the first shots rang out, as reported by the New York Post.

As the community reels, investigators are digging into the background of the teenage shooter. Law enforcement sources told The Guardian and The New York Post that they seized electronics from the home of the shooter's mother, Shauntai Nickerson. Investigators are probing whether the teenager harbored an obsession with Nazism or interacted with violent extremist networks such as the online terror group "764," which manipulates young people into sharing acts of violence. Nickerson had legally purchased the pump-action shotgun used in the massacre, telling reporters through tears that she wished she could have stopped her son.

Recovery efforts and community support continue to unfold across the region. Public schools in Bend began welcoming students back under heightened security, with officers maintaining a visible presence around campuses to support grieving children and staff.

Authorities will continue reviewing school safety protocols and examining how the shooter obtained his weapons.