When the first shot rang out at Debsirin Nonthaburi School on the outskirts of Bangkok on Friday morning, 14-year-old Khim and her classmates looked over a balcony, initially wondering whether the sound had come from a nearby construction site.
Then came more bangs.
A teacher ushered the students into a classroom and checked a student messaging group. The answer was no longer uncertain: an armed student was inside the school.
Khim and her classmates moved desks against the classroom door, switched off the lights and gathered near the windows. “I heard multiple gunshots and felt like we weren't going to survive,” Khim, who asked to be identified only by her nickname, told Reuters the following day.
For the students inside the school, the shooting was experienced not as a single event but as a series of sounds, messages and decisions made with little information. The gunman could not be seen from every classroom, and students relied on teachers, phones and chat groups to understand what was happening elsewhere in the sprawling school.
The attack ultimately killed nine people and wounded 23, according to police and Reuters reporting. The dead included three teachers and two school officials, while a 12-year-old girl who had been injured died the following day. The alleged shooter, also 14, died after turning the gun on himself. The shooting became Thailand's deadliest mass shooting since 2022.
For Khim, the danger became more immediate as information travelled through the school.
She was sheltering in Building 5 when she began checking messages on her tablet. Her older sister was hiding in a classroom in Building 4, next door. Their mother, a nurse identified by the nickname Kwan, was at work in a public hospital when she learned that both daughters were caught up in the shooting.
Kwan said she tried to make sense of what her daughter was hearing. From conversations relayed through a student chat group, she believed the attacker was using a handgun. She told her daughter to count the shots, hoping the ammunition might run out.
Instead, Kwan said, the sound of gunfire appeared to move closer to the building where her older daughter was hiding. Police later said the attacker had fired at least 26 bullets and had another 34 rounds in his possession.
The family's phone calls became a lifeline.
Kwan contacted an emergency hotline while remaining on the phone with her daughter. She told the operator that her child was on the second floor and that police were moving through the building. Then the call with her daughter suddenly ended.
Minutes later, the girl called back. She was unharmed.
The family would not be together again until hours later, when they reunited at home in suburban Bangkok. For Khim, the separation between the two sisters had taken on a different meaning after the shooting. “When we are together, we fight all the time,” she said. “But seeing her this time, I've never loved her this much before.”
The shooting began before the students knew they were in danger.
Police said the alleged attacker had killed his grandparents at their home at dawn before taking a bus about 18 km to the school. He arrived shortly before 10 a.m. and opened fire. The investigation has since focused on how a teenager obtained the firearm and what may have preceded the attack.
Police said on Sunday that the boy had shown an interest in firearms for one to two years and had used social media to learn about operating a gun. Officers also said a teacher had confiscated a BB gun he brought to school the previous year. Police said they had interviewed 17 witnesses and recovered a firearm, spent cartridge cases, a knife and a computer as part of the investigation.
Authorities have not presented those findings as a complete explanation for why the shooting happened.
The government response has instead begun to focus on how schools can identify risks and respond when violence occurs. Thailand's Education Ministry said it would develop new safety measures over three months, including mental-health screening, referral systems for people considered at risk, emergency-response drills, anti-bullying measures and stronger checks to prevent weapons and other prohibited items from entering schools.
The measures come against a broader backdrop of gun violence in Thailand. The country has one of Southeast Asia's highest levels of civilian firearm ownership, and the shooting has renewed questions about access to guns and the effectiveness of existing controls. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has pledged tighter gun regulations following the attack.
But inside Debsirin Nonthaburi School, the immediate reality for students was more basic: where to hide, whether a door could be secured, what the next sound meant and whether the person they were trying to reach by phone was still safe.
Khim's account captures that uncertainty. Even after she learned that the attacker was nearby, she said she did not know whether he was targeting particular people or the school as a whole.
“I didn't know if the shooter was shooting selectively. I didn't know if he wanted to shoot the whole school,” she told Reuters.
The following days brought a different kind of silence. The school became the site of investigation and mourning, while flowers and photographs of teachers killed in the attack were left outside its gates. Classes were suspended for the following week as authorities began examining how the violence had unfolded and what could be done to prevent another attack.
For the students who hid inside the classrooms, however, the lasting record of that morning was not only the number of victims or the questions surrounding the attacker. It was also the memory of waiting for the next sound, listening for information through a phone, and trying to establish that someone they loved was still alive.
