Mother leaped on wounded daughter as gunman took aim

When Kathleen Dixon felt a bullet breeze past her ear, the first thing she did was tackle her daughter to the street outside Dawson College.

"Poor kid, she's got a bruise on her face from where I hit her when I grabbed her head to get her down and get on top of her," Kathlene Dixonsaid Friday in an interview with the CBC fromher homeas her recuperating daughter, 18-year-old Meaghan Hennegan, sat beside her.

On Wednesday afternoon, the two were outside the school indowntown Montrealchatting with Hennegan's friendswhen Kimveer Gill opened fire, and thenturned his sights toward them.

At first, Hennegan said, shedidn't realize she had been shot.

"I couldn't realize why I couldn't move my hand and I couldn't move my leg," she said. "And then I looked up then I sawhim and I was like, 'Oh yeah, he had a gun, it was real.' Then I could hear the shots going off."

Dixonsaid she started feeling around her daughter's body to seewhere the bullets had struck.

"She was going, 'Mummy,Mummy, my hand hurts.' And I went down there and could see the hole in the sleeve of her jacket," she said."My hand came up all sticky off of her hip."

Henneganrecalled feeling a surge of panic when she thought the bullet had gone through the main artery in her leg. But she said she calmed down after she realized the bullet had struck her buttock. A second bullet hadpassed throughher right forearm.

"When I realized it was only in my butt muscle … it was OK and I could move, and I could think and I could see straight. I started calming down because panicking wasn't going to get me anywhere," she said.

'I saw his boots'

She said she never got a good look at Gill, whose deadly rampage would claim the life of 18-year-old business student Anastasia De Sousa and wound 19 others. Wounded in the arm by police, Gill, 25,would later turn his gun on himself.

"I saw his boots," Hennegan said. "I was on the floor, so I could only see things at my eye level. I saw him turn to walk in the school."

An off-duty ambulance technician instructed police officers to cover him as he carried Hennegan in his arms to a commandeered police cruiserto shelter her before rushing her to an ambulance.

"He's my favourite person on the face of this earth right now," Dixon said, tears welling up in her eyes.

Hennegan spent two days in hospital, butdid not require surgery and is likely to suffer nopermanent damage from her wounds.

"I was just in the wrong placeat the wrong time,"she said. "If it hadn't have been me, it wouldhave been someone else."

Motive of rampage unclear

What provoked his attack on the school remained a mystery Friday as police continued to interview hundreds of witnesses and investigate Gill's apparent obsession with firearms and violent video games.

Teachers and support staff returnedto the college Friday. Students will not resume classes immediately, but will be allowed to return to school on Mondayfor counselling, and to pick up items left behind during the panicked exit Wednesday afternoon.