Allison Heathcote, who was 48 at the time, was staying at the Imperial Marhaba hotel in Sousse with her husband, Philip, on a holiday to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.
The couple, from Felixstowe, were sunbathing on the beach outside the hotel on the morning of 26 June 2015 — three days before their anniversary — when Seifeddine Rezgui, 23, opened fire, killing 38 holidaymakers, among them 30 Britons, including Philip Heathcote.
In a statement to the London inquests into the British deaths, Allison Heathcote, who was later put into an induced coma for a month, described the moment she was shot.
“I became aware of being shot in my upper right arm,” she said.
“It was a stinging pain.
I was conscious that I had been shot elsewhere on my body but strangely I did not remember bleeding from my injuries and I was not actually aware I had been shot in my abdomen.”
She said fellow holidaymakers were screaming and running away from the scene as she shouted for help.
She then heard the sounds of gunshots getting louder as she realised the gunman was returning to the beach.
“I was fearing for my life,” she said. “I lay still on the sand trying not to move in an effort to not draw attention to the fact I was still alive.
I realised my best chance of survival was to play dead.”
Heathcote said she was not aware at this stage if her husband had been shot.”At the first opportunity I was asking Phil if he was all right.
There was no response from Phil and I realised he had not made it.”
The inquests are hearing individual details of each of the 30 deaths including “pen portraits” of those who died.
Philip Heathcote, who was 53 when he died, was described as a man who “called a spade a spade” by his widow, with whom he had one son, James, who is 27.
He worked for Goldstar transport as a traffic operator, was an avid Manchester United fan and a youth cricket coach.
Last week, the inquest heard evidence from the Foreign Office (FCO) and Tui, the travel firm with which all 30 of the Britons killed had booked their holiday.
The inquest heard claims that Tui travel agents had reassured some of the survivors that Tunisia was 100% safe when they booked their trip to Sousse, despite travel advice warning of a threat from terrorism.
It also heard that tour operators working for the firm told embassy officials they did not want “an army of police” on the streets of Tunisia because it would scare tourists, although they did accept some increase in security was required.
Lawyers representing families of 20 of the Britons who died are to accuse Tui of “practically hiding and keeping out of the limelight”
FCO warnings about terrorism in Tunisia, according to papers submitted in advance of the resumption of the inquests.
Last week, the inquest was shown how Tui customers were able to access the FCO advice via links on booking pages on the firm’s website.
Giving evidence to the inquest, Tui representatives said they did not carry out regular security risk assessments and did not agree security audits were necessary as they were told the advice would not be changing.
The hearing later heard from the daughter of a couple who were just three months away from their 50th wedding anniversary when they were both killed on the beach.
Fighting back tears, Donna Bradley told the inquest that her parents,
Ray and Angie Fisher, did not live to meet their first grandchild, who was born two days before the inquests resumed, to their son Adam and his fiancee.
A witness said he saw Ray Fisher, 75, who was a retired former engineer and caretaker who loved wildlife and bred koi carp, shot twice by Rezgui from a range of about three yards as he sat on a sunlounger.
In a statement read to the inquest, holidaymaker Alan Foster, who was sitting nearby, said: “He [the gunman] was holding the gun [at] hip level when he shot the man.”
Angie Fisher, 69, who was a retired bank manager and hairdresser, was shot five times, including in the head and neck, a postmortem revealed.
A former British soldier who saw the Fishers, both from Leicester, on the beach told how he later walked past the gunman after mistaking him for a security guard.
Keith Hawkes, who served with the Gurkhas during a 22-year career, said he saw Rezgui with an AK-47 assault rifle and narrowly avoided being shot himself.
In a statement read to the inquest, Hawkins described security officers who arrived as a mess, saying: “They looked like anyone off the street, they didn’t have any uniforms and one guy must have been 20 stone.”
The inquest has previously heard criticism of local law enforcement, who were accused during a Tunisian investigation into the mass killing of deliberately delaying their arrival at the scene to confront Rezgui.
The hearings are set to continue until the end of February.
