A Florida State student from St. Augustine gave a harrowing account of Thursday’s mass shooting that left at least two people dead and several others injured.
Nease High School graduate Isabella Miller, 20, told The Citizen that she was in the middle of a lecture in a large hall when a female classmate suddenly interrupted her anatomy professor.
“There’s an emergency,” Miller recalled her announcing. “There’s someone shooting outside.”
A friend of the girl had left the large lecture hall to go to the bathroom and heard several gunshots exploding near the Student Union — directly next to the lecture hall.
She then texted her friend, who was still inside the class, and the friend made the announcement.
Seconds later, two students ran into the classroom and said someone had opened fire outside.
“Everyone just shut their laptops, no one was really sure what to do,” Miller said. “A lot of people started crying. We were just on edge.”
Some students immediately bolted for the exits, but most remained in their seats.
Miller credited her professor for remaining composed during the situation, telling students that the doors to classrooms would automatically lock to prevent any intrusions.
He then instructed them to cluster in the hall’s upper seats to keep them out of eyesight should the shooter somehow breach the room.
After 20 heart-quaking minutes, with sobs and fear filling the cavernous hall, a SWAT unit suddenly swung open the door and loudly ordered everyone to leave.
With police units standing sentry, the frightened throng headed for the exits. Once outside, they saw a line of police standing in front of the Student Union to form a human barrier between them and the scene of the gunfire.
“It was a massive crowd of students out there,” she said. “They told us to just start walking away from Student Union, towards an area known as College Town.”
Miller said emergency units were fanned out across the area, and that she saw a young girl being taken away on a stretcher and placed into an ambulance.
“I just started praying for her,” she said. “I prayed that she would be OK, that we would all be OK.”
Some students in the tense procession were running, while others walked briskly, she said.
A friend happened to live in College Town, and Miller went to her home.
“We just locked all the doors and sat there,” she said. “Just waiting.”
The university soon informed students that the situation was under control, and Miller breathed a sigh of saddened relief.
She had already planned to return to St. Augustine to be with family Thursday night ahead of Easter.
The drive home, she said, can’t come soon enough.
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