Dozens of Nanaimo students were in Nice, France at the time of Thursday’s attack, some narrowly escaping the blood shed by mere metres.

On Friday afternoon, Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District announced the 85 students and chaperones in France are cutting their trip short and returning to Canada.

Media Release: Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools Plans for Safe Return of Students from #Nice https://t.co/H3Awb0traP — School District 68 (@sd68bc) July 16, 2016

Thousands of people were out celebrating Bastille Day in the French city. More than 80 people were killed and 200 others were injured after a truck plowed into a crowd. The driver then emerged from the truck and began to open fire.

The Nanaimo students were watching fireworks, only 30 metres from where the attack happened.

A mother of one of the students on the trip told CTV News that she’s counting down the days until she’s reunited with her daughter.

“It could’ve been her, things could have gone a lot different,” Carey Metz said.

From her home in Nanaimo, Metz helplessly watched as the news unfolded, clinging to her phone, desperate for contact from her 14-year-old daughter Mya. The call eventually came.

“They heard everybody screaming, but they didn’t understand because it was all in French. Everyone started running and they ran with them,” Metz said.

The students and a dozen chaperones are on a two-week trip, visiting France and Spain. All of them were unharmed in the attack.

“Anybody who witnessed an event like that would feel trauma. The big part of it, like I said, we’re offering support, we had a counsellor speak to them right away this morning,” School District 68 director of communications Dale Burgos said.

France was under a state of emergency at the time of Thursday’s attack, due to a deadly attack last November at a concert hall that killed more than 120 people.

However, the school district deemed it was safe for students to travel abroad this summer.

“There were some advisories and it’s a determination that they thought where they were going would be safe. It’s really hard to predict these things,” Burgos said.

Metz said she appreciates how much communication she’s received from school officials throughout the ordeal.

“The communication through the school district, the chaperones, the superintendent, her principal called me personally, was amazing. I couldn’t have done a better job at keeping her safe,” Metz said.

The students were scheduled to return to the island on July 25, but the school district made the decision to bring them home early after consulting with the education ministry and the Canadian Centre for Threat Assessment and Trauma Response.

A psychologist and trauma response expert is enroute to their location and will spend the next few days with the students and chaperones who witnessed the attack.

The exact date of their return has not been decided.

You can read the release from the school here.