Tennessee shooting: Survivor describes seeing colleagues with gunshot wounds to their head and stomach

Workers and shoppers alike ducked for cover when a shooter opened fire at a Kroger grocery store in Collierville, Tennessee

A survivor of the mass shooting at a grocery store in Collierville, Tennessee has described seeing her colleagues getting shot in the head and stomach.

At least one person was killed and 12 were injured when a shooter opened fire at a Kroger grocery store near Memphis in what local police called “the most horrific event” in the town’s history.

The woman, who works at the store and was still wearing her blue Kroger apron, said: “One of my coworkers got shot in the head, and a customer got shot in the stomach and in the arm.

“Another one of my coworkers got a little cut on top of his eye from the asphalt...

“I couldn’t see [how it happened] because I was ducking and he was on top of – everybody was covered.”

Officials said four people were in a critical condition on Thursday afternoon, while the shooter appeared to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Collierville police chief Dale Lane told a press conference: “We found people hiding in freezers, in locked officers, and they were doing what they had been trained to do – run, hide, fight. I hate that we had to do it here.”

“Run, hide, fight” is a common mantra for people caught in mass shootings, instructing them to run first, hide second, and fight only as a last resort. In an era of frequent shooting massacres, it is now taught to school children starting as early as kindergarten.

Chief Lane said: “You know obviously it’s like every other community in the country, it’s horrific, we hate that it happened. but this is one of the most resilient communities in America.”

Police, firefighters and rescue crews descended on the location and set up a perimeter after the first reports of an active shooter at 1.30 pm local time. Two medical helicopters touched down at the site and the nearby Collierville High School was put in lockdown.