Students at Apalachee High School recalled the harrowing moments of a school shooting on Wednesday that left four dead and nine hospitalized.
Miguel Eduardo Perichi Orta, a sophomore at the school in Winder, Ga., said he saw “a huge puddle of blood in the classroom” during the massacre.
Apalachee High School students and staff outside the football field after getting evacuated for a school shooting that occurred in Winder, Georgia, on Sept. 4, 2024. via REUTERS“That really, it like dropped my stomach,” he said to WXIA reporters.
“It was heartbreaking to see that.”
The student added he was “upset and disappointed” over the shooting.
“If something like this can happen here, when you think it’s a normal day, it can happen anywhere, and that’s what really hurts,” he said.
Camille Nelms, a 14-year-old pupil, recalled the harrowing moment a gunman entered her classroom.
“I was crying. I didn’t want to die that way,” Nelms told WXIA.
“I don’t want to meet the Lord that way.”
Marques Coleman, another 14-year-old kid, told WPRI that he immediately dove behind his desk when the gunshots broke out, leaving his classroom covered in smoke and his eardrums ringing.
“I got up. I started running. He started shooting like 10 times,” the teen recalled, adding that his teacher dove in front of him to protect him.
“I saw one of my classmates on the ground, bleeding so bad,” Coleman said of the aftermath.
“I was checking on my other friend ’cause he got grazed in his leg, and then there was a white girl in front of me, and she got shot in the leg,” he added.
Four people were killed in the mass shooting at Apalachee High School. Getty Images
Law enforcement officers responding to the mass shooting outside Apalachee High in Winder, Georgia, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024. AP“My other friend got shot in her stomach, and it was just so sad,” he lamented.
“It just keeps replaying in the back of my head.”
During the shooting, Ethan Clark sent a chilling text to his mother letting her know about the tragedy that was unfolding, WSB-TV reports.
“School shooting [right now]. I’m scared. Pls. I’m not joking,” he wrote.
“I’m leaving work,” his mother, Erin, replied.
“I love you,” Ethan wrote.
The scene outside Apalachee High School as an injured person is seen here being put onto a helicopter outside Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. Fox 5 Atlanta
Parents and students leaving Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, after being reunited with their children after the school shooting took place in Winder, Georgia, on September 4, 2024. AFP via Getty Images“Love you too baby. Where are you?” Erin asked before getting a haunting answer.
“Class. Someone’s dead.”
Officials have yet to identify the four victims who were killed nor the gunman, who was taken into custody, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
It was not immediately clear if the shooter attended the high school, which is about 45 minutes outside Atlanta.
David Phenix, a special education math teacher at the school, was identified as one of the people injured in the shooting.
His family said the loving father was shot in the foot and hip, shattering his hip bone and leading him to need surgery.
