A mother whose son survived the Thailand massacre has described the horror of seeing bodies and blood strewn at the nursery.
Joy's son Sumaee had two bullets removed from his head on Friday by two skilled neurosurgeons after he was shot at by Panya Khamrab.
While Sumaee was lucky to survive, most of the 38 victims were children aged between two and five and many were killed with a machete-like blade farmers use to cut sugarcane, police said.
Mr Khamrab, a former Police Lieutenant with drug offences, went on a brutal stabbing and shooting rampage in northern Thailand on Thursday.
The nursery attack in the province of Nong Bua Lamphu was the worst mass killing by a single attacker in the country's recent history.
The killer also murdered his wife, child and himself after he fled the scene of the nursery, some 300 miles north-north-east of Bangkok.
Joy told Sky News her son was stabbed in the head and then shot twice.
His mother went to the school when she heard the horrifying news and was met with a sea of bodies and blood everywhere.
"I fainted," she said.
Her husband spotted Sumaee being carried out by a rescue team into an ambulance.
"I was holding his legs and feet in the ambulance and trying to tell him to be strong", she continued.
Joy holds deep guilt over that day as Sumaee did not want to go to nursery that morning. He'd begged her not to go to school, "but I forced him," she says.
No clear motive had been established yet for the rampage on Thursday, but police have said their preliminary investigation indicated Mr Khamrap was deeply troubled by marital and money problems.
He was suspended from duties in January after he admitted to using two types of methamphetamine.
"He wanted to vent. We learned from his mother that on the day of the incident he was quarrelling with his wife," local police chief Chakkraphat Wichitvaidya told Reuters.
One witness, Kittisak Polprakan, said he saw the attacker calmly walking out of the daycare centre.
The aunt of a three-year-old boy who died said: "I came and I saw two bodies in front of the school and I immediately knew that my kid was already dead."
Thailand’s King, Maha Vajiralongkorn, will place the victims of the attack under royal patronage and will pay for the funerals of those killed and the medical expenses of anyone injured.
Prayuth Chan-Ocha, the Prime Minister, is expected to meet with some of the families on Friday afternoon and the King will visit a hospital in the area in the evening.
