When a shot is fired nearby, a person has a few seconds to decide: drop to the ground or go and see what’s happening. The police will arrive within a few minutes, but everyone lives through those minutes alone, and they often decide who survives. Over years of war, Ukrainians have developed a simple reflex that saves lives in moments like these: first drop down and take cover, and only then think about what happened.
Poland is in mourning after Saturday’s shooting on Kraków’s Main Market Square, in which six people were killed. According to the police, officers exchanged fire with the attacker as early as the third minute. After the attack, dozens of videos appeared online. In some, you can see someone, at the sound of gunshots, instead of taking cover, walk out of a café into the street and record, while people around run in panic in different directions because they don’t know where to flee. In recordings from Ukrainian cities under fire, the picture is different: people immediately drop to the ground, and if they have a few seconds, they run to the nearest wall or depression in the terrain and lie down there. A missile attack and a person with a rifle are different threats, but the reaction mechanism is similar: take cover, and when the danger has passed, help the wounded.
What really saves lives when shots are fired nearby?
On 18 April 2026 in Kyiv, a man with a carbine opened fire on pedestrians, killed six people, and then barricaded himself in a supermarket and took hostages. The Security Service of Ukraine classified the attack as an act of terrorism. After this tragedy, Ukrainian rescuers and local authorities once again reminded people how to behave when someone is shooting nearby.
Security expert Denys Mykhalchenko explained on the air of the “Kyiv 24” channel that the most important task for a person under fire is to disappear from the shooter’s field of view as quickly as possible. Cover, he said, can be “a trash bin, a curb, a tree or a car,” and if there is nothing, then even a small dip in the ground where you can lie down. And most importantly: at the sound of gunshots you must move away in the opposite direction, not go there to record a video.
The basics of these rules have been repeated for years by DSNS (ed. note: the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, the Ukrainian rescue service): immediately drop to the ground, find the nearest cover, and at the first opportunity take shelter in a stairwell or an underground passage. The most detailed instruction after the events in Kyiv was prepared by military psychologist Olena Nahorna: 12 rules of conduct during a shooting. Their meaning can be summed up in three words: quiet, low, cover. A person’s task, the psychologist emphasizes, is not to control the situation but to control yourself and reduce risk. This advice is just as relevant in Kyiv, Kraków or Mielec.
What to do when someone is shooting nearby:
- Don’t go to check. At the first sound of gunshots, crouch down or lie down. A quick reaction is more important than understanding what is happening.
- Look for real cover. Concrete, brick, a pole, a curb, a building projection, an underpass, a stairwell. Glass, a shop window, plasterboard and furniture only conceal you, but do not protect you. A car also stops bullets poorly, and the fuel may ignite.
- Move away from the source of the sound. In short bursts, not across open space, not into a crowd, and not to an elevator.
- If you can’t run, hide. Sit down or lie down, silence your phone and turn off vibrations, don’t speak, don’t peek. Indoors, close the door, turn off the lights, stay away from doors and windows. At home: the bathroom and the floor, because ricochets are dangerous in rooms.
- If you’re lying in the open, curl up with your legs toward the direction of the shots, and don’t get up for at least five minutes after everything goes quiet.
- With children: hold them by the hand or hug them close, give short, clear instructions. Children imitate adults, so your calm also protects them.
- When the police arrive, don’t run toward them, keep your hands visible, follow instructions without sudden movements.
- When the threat has passed, call 112, briefly let your loved ones know that you are safe, and don’t spread unverified information or recordings of the wounded and the dead.
The last point may seem like a minor detail, but after Kraków it probably hurts the most. Online, there are recordings of the wounded and the dead, made by people who at that time could have been helping, and shared with no censorship at all. No one thinks that the victims’ loved ones might see them. Olena Nahorna’s instructions place this alongside other dangerous mistakes: don’t record, don’t watch, don’t go back for your things.
The second half of the response is helping the wounded. Before the ambulance arrives—and in Kraków paramedics were on site already in the fourth minute—a life can be saved by someone standing nearby who knows how to stop the bleeding. With severe bleeding, minutes matter, and no instructions on a phone will replace skills practiced with your own hands. A first aid course is just a few hours that one day may give someone a chance to live until the rescuers arrive. Such knowledge seems unnecessary right up until the moment it becomes the only thing that matters.
No one chooses where they will be when a shot is fired. But everyone can choose what they do in the first second.
Source: Police, DSNS of Ukraine
Historian, ethnographer, and social media specialist. She has many years of experience developing YouTube channels, helping experts and businesses build their online presence. She has conducted academic research in ethnopsychology and ethnopedagogy in Galicia and the Northern Black Sea region. Her interests include the history of Ukraine and Europe, Polish-Ukrainian relations, and ethno-national and intercultural issues.
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