President Donald Trump has used a picture of a Parkland high school massacre survivor in an email asking for cash towards his re-election campaign.
The President and First Lady Melania Trump visited Madeleine Wilford, 17, in hospital two days after the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The email led with a photo of the visit and stated that Trump, who has proposed arming teachers as a way to tackle school shootings, would make children’s safety his top priority.
Come begging: A black-and-white version of this photograph was used to illustrate an email asking for donations to the Trump re-election campaign
‘The nation has turned its attention to the senseless school shooting in Parkland, Florida,’ the email seen by CNN reads.
‘Trump is taking steps toward banning gun bump stocks and strengthening background checks for gun purchasers.
‘The President has made his intent very clear: ‘making our schools and our children safer will be our top priority.”
The email was finished off with a link to the Trump re-election campaign’s donations website.
It is not known if Miss Wilford or her family are Trump supporters, nor if she gave permission for the photograph to be used in his campaign.
The President and First Lady Melania Trump visited Madeleine Wilford, 17, in hospital two days after the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida
Students and their parents are pictured on Sunday as they went back to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School nearly two weeks after a gunman killed 17 students and teachers
During their visit to her sickbed, the President and the First Lady promised to give Miss Wilford a letter of recommendation for the college she hopes to attend, Brigham Young University.
Miss Wilford survived the school shooting on Valentines Day which saw former student Nikolas Cruz, 19, murder 14 students and three members of staff.
She suffered a collapsed lung and had to have three tendons in her right arm re-attached and and titanium plates fused to her broken ribs.
After a week in hospital, Miss Wilford made was able to return home last Wednesday.
In an interview from her hospital bed, Miss Wilford described how Cruz had begun shooting through windows a few classrooms down as he made his way down the hall.
She recalled how students dove to the floor in an attempt to get out of the line of sight of the door window as she wedged herself between the teacher’s podium and a desk. As students hid, she was pushed towards the middle of the room.
‘All of a sudden I felt a shot hit me,’ Miss Wilford,, a devout Mormon Christian, told Deseret News, adding that she could not recall feeling the other three bullets.
‘I realized I was shot and an immense amount of pain went over me. The first thing I thought was that I was going to die. I was screaming, “Help me! Help me!” I was frantic. I didn’t know what to do.’