A teenager helped protect his classmates from the gunman in the mass shooting on Wednesday in Florida.
The Marjory Stoneman High School student, freshman Brandon Carrasco, said he was trapped in a classroom as the shooter roved around the school.
Carrasco stayed calm and followed instructions from the active shooter drills that the school has conducted.
“I knew if I stayed calm, other students, it would help them stay a lot calmer as well. It would make the situation less intense.”
Carrasco was in the classroom with his peers for almost 2 hours.
He said on his way out of the school he saw a number of dead bodies.
Officials said 17 people were killed and at least 14 were injured.
Other students recalled the ordeal in their classrooms, such as Samanta Grady, a junior who said she was working on an assignment about the Holocaust when she heard two bullets shot in the hallway.
Her friend pushed her down and they rushed behind a big bookshelf, where she used a book to shield herself from any bullets coming her way.
The friend who initially pushed her down was one of the 17 killed.
“He shot quite a few bullets into the glass and it hit quite a few students behind me,” she said.
“We were already situated by the bookshelf. She was like, ‘Grab a book, grab a book,’ and so I took a book. It was a tiny book, but I took a book and I held it up. I believe, maybe, the book kind of deterred some of the bullets, so it didn’t hit me so badly. She was the one who gave me the idea. She definitely helped me a lot.”
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