Teen's texts offer window into Norway terror

Marianne Bremnes received the kind of message that a mother dreads.

“Mummy, tell the police to come quick. People are dying here,” her 16-year-old daughter Julie wrote in a text message from Norway’s Utoya island on Friday.

Like many of the young people attending a Labor Party camp on the island, Julie Bremnes was carrying a cell phone, enabling her to reach her mom while Anders Berhing Breivik was on a 90-minute shooting rampage, killing dozens of people. Her exchange with her mother, released on Wednesday, gives a glimpse into the long, terrifying wait for help.

“The police know,” Marianne Bremnes, 46, texted her daughter. “They’ve had many calls. Give a sign of life every five minutes.”

Julie, was hiding under a rock with three friends while Breivik roamed the island, shooting people as they cowered, ran, or tried to swim for safety.

“We are in fear of our lives,” Julie texted.

Mother: “I understand. Stay hidden.”

As the wait for rescue dragged on, the text conversation seemed a preparation for the worst.

Julie: “I love you even if I still misbehave from time to time."

Mother: “I know that my darling. We love you very much.”

The exchange went on for about 90 minutes.

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Julie and her three friends were rescued, physically unharmed.

Many others were not as fortunate.

Breivik shot to death 68 people on the island, and injured many more. Breivik also detonated a bomb at a Norwegian government building in Oslo earlier in the day, killing 8 others before travelling to the island, about 28 miles away.

Adrian Pracon, 21, said members at the camp were gathering for a meeting, to discuss the news of the bombing earlier in the day, which was also carried out by Breivik before he came to the island.

Pracon was shot in the shoulder as he lay among the bodies, hoping to be mistaken for one of the dead.

“I knew it was over,” he told NBC’s Martin Fletcher from his hospital bed. “I knew I was going to die now.”

He said that there were long spells of silence while Breivik was searching for people in hiding, broken occasionally by bursts of gunfire and screams.

“(Breivik) also screamed out that he would kill us all," Pracon said. "That this was the day we would die out,” said Pracon.

On Wednesaday, the Daily Mail reported that the Breivik had consumed a cocktail of drugs prior to his attack in order to be "strong and efficient," according to the defense lawyer. Breivik had plotted to inject poison into the bullets during the attack, though it was unclear whether he had actually done so . He wore a police uniform to draw young campers to him, and appeared in total control during the island rampage, police official Odd Reidar Humlegaard said.

Some of the last-minute cell phone exchanges among loved ones would prove to be their last.

Gunnar Linaker, 23, was speaking by cell phone to his father Roald Linaker in Bardu in northern Norway when the mayhem began.

"He said to me: 'Dad, dad, someone is shooting,' and then he hung up," Roald Linaker said.

Gunnar Linaker was shot and later died in the hospital, having never regained consciousness.

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German tourist rescued teens during island massacre

A German tourist is being hailed as a hero for rescuing at least 20 people from a gunman's rampage on Utoya island in Norway, according to media reports.

Marcel Gleffe, 32, was with his family Friday at a campground across the water from the island when he heard gunshots, Der Spiegel reported. He and his family looked out from the shore, thinking it might be fireworks, but instead they saw a plume of smoke and a girl swimming frantically in the water and screaming.

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Gleffe got into the boat he had rented and set off, Der Spiegel said. He was the first person to reach the island where Anders Behring Breivik gunned down dozens of youngsters at a summer camp.

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"I just did it on instinct," Gleffe told The Telegraph newspaper.

"You don't get scared in a situation like that, you just do what it takes. I know the difference between fireworks and gunfire. I knew what it was about, and that it wasn't just nonsense."

He said many of the youths were suspicious and shouted, "Are you police, are you police?" Some of them reportedly shouted, "terrorist, terrorist, terrorist," as others tried to explain that the shooter was dressed in a police uniform.

Video: Girl pretended to be dead, survived Norway attack (on this page)

"They were happy to get help, but they were unsure whom they could trust," he told the local Dagbladet newspaper, according to The Telegraph.

"There were people swimming everywhere in the water. I threw them lifejackets and pulled those into the boat who were having the most trouble. Everyone was screaming, but they were also helping each other," he told Der Spiegel.

Slideshow: Norway in mourning after massacre (on this page)

Gleffe made several trips to the island to rescue around six people each time for about an hour, when police finally arrived, a German English-language news website The Local reported. Other people from Gleffe's campsite also joined him and ferried people back to the mainland with their boats.

"Cooperation with the police and rescue crews afterwards was very good, but it all came too late," he said.

When police arrived, Gleffe stopped to think about himself for the first time, he told The Local.

"I was myself so frozen that I had to first warm myself up. I was turning blue," he said.

Meantime, the alleged killer appeared in court Monday , telling a judge that his bomb attack in Oslo and the camp shooting rampage was aimed at saving Europe from a Muslim takeover.

Police revised the death toll downward to 76 from 93, saying eight people were now known to have died in the bomb blast in central Oslo, and 68 on Utoya.

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