Stories from Survivors
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Jonathan Blank, Parkland shooting survivor:
"I went under a desk. Um, we stayed there. I was lying down, and four kids in my class got shot. Two of them, I believe, passed away. Um, I saw them on the ground after they were shot. There was blood everywhere. And it was just horrible."
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Reporter: Samantha, as I understand it, the door to your classroom was actually locked, but he shot through the glass. What happened?
Samantha: Yeah, the door was locked thankfully, but he shot quite a few bullets into the glass and it hit a few people behind me. It was intense.
Reporter: And sometimes you put anything you can in front of you to protect yourself. We read that your friend suggested that you get a book. Can you tell me about that?
Samantha: She said, "Grab a book," so I took a book. It was a tiny book, but I held it up and I believe that it deterred some of the bullets, so they didn't hit me badly. She may have helped a lot."
"There was two doors that was like
across the classroom that connected
to another classroom, I just remember
being so afraid of that other door that
maybe he would like come in through
that other classroom door and go into
our room"
~Ashley
" He shot the little window in the door and then went into the other classroom, there's a door between our classrooms and he came in through the door, told my teacher "good night" and shot her in the head and then he shot my classmates"
~Miah
"I left my daughter at that school, and that decision will haunt me for the rest of my life."
~Felix & Kimberly Rubio
'I put one of my students on top of the toilet. I was telling them, 'it's going to be OK, you're going to be alright.'
'I told them to be absolutely quiet because I was just so afraid if he did come in he would hear us and start shooting the door.
'I said there are bad guys out there now. We need to wait for the good guys.'
'The kids were being so good. They asked, "Can we go see if anyone is out there? I just want Christmas, I don't want to die, I just want to have Christmas.”
'I said, “You're going to have Christmas and Hanukkah.” I tried to be positive. If they started crying I would take their face and say it's going to be OK.
~Kaitlin Roig
former teacher & survivor
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" He just walked in the room and just said you're all going to die and he just started shooting everybody. I played dead so he wouldn't shoot me"
~Samuel Salinas
9 year old survivor of Uvalde
(At time stamp 2:23):
Erica Duvall (cell phone video)- (whispering terrified barely audible) someone is breaking the glass in the door and coming in!
Friend-- (whispering) Breathe!! Just breathe!! it's the cops!!
Erica-- is it!! He's breaking the glass (sound of the glass panel breaking)
Friend-- Breathe!! breathe!!
Swat Team-- Get down! Everyone on the floor! On the floor!
~Erica Duvall
Parkland survivor​
Reporter- Were there friends of yours that didn't make it?
Hannah- um there were four to six people in my classroom that got shot and two of them Nick Dworet and Helena Ramsay didn't make it.
Reporter--That is devastating... and where were they? Why were you able to walk out?
Hannah-- um... I was able to walk out because the way that our classrooms are set up , there's not much space behind the teachers desk to hide. So with the thirty kids we have in our class, only so many could hide behind her desk and a lot of them had to line up on the wall near where you can see through the door window and so they were the unlucky ones in our class.
Reporter-- And the gunman was shooting through the window?
Hannah- Yeah, he shot through the door and our door has a window and he shattered the glass."
~Hannah
Parkland survivor