Michigan State University student Sami Norcutt, 19, had been taught how to respond in an active shooting situation.
But when it actually happened at her campus Monday night, it all felt surreal.
“My entire life I’ve been told what to do in this situation, but now that it’s happening, I don’t know what to do,” Norcutt said. “This isn’t supposed to happen to me. I see this on the news, this wasn’t supposed to happen at my school.”
Three students were killed on campus and five others were wounded Monday when a gunman opened fire at an academic building and the MSU student union before fleeing and leading police on a manhunt that ended when he fatally shot himself.
Norcutt was studying with friends in her dorm room when she got a text about an active shooter on campus.
“We got texts like this before, so we didn’t know how concerned we should be,” Norcutt said.
She didn’t understand how serious the situation was until a friend of hers, who left the student union minutes before shots were fired there, arrived at her dorm room.
“Then we realized, there’s someone on campus who is trying to hurt us,” Norcutt said. That’s when the group of students turned off their lights and moved something in front of the room’s door to barricade themselves.
Even after they heard that the gunman had been found dead, Norcutt and three friends stayed together in the dorm overnight for comfort. They kept the door blocked.
“This is one of the most traumatic experiences of my life,” she said. “I live at MSU, and I shouldn’t be scared to walk out of my front door, but from now on I will be.”
Ryan Kunkler, 22, was in the university’s engineering building for a course on smart sensors when he received an email around 8:30 p.m. advising him to “run, hide, fight.”
“That was scary,” Kunkler said. “Another student in the room actually told us they were hearing it was an active shooter. Then we heard shots had been fired at Anthony Hall, which was right next door.”
Read the full article here
