Florida High School Students Recount ‘Very Scary’ Moments in Emotional Interview

A group of Parkland, Florida students detailed the “very scary” moments when a gunman opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday.

They survived, but 14 students and three teachers did not. The suspect, Nikolas Cruz, was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

“If there’s anything that needs to be said right now, it’s that when you shut this TV off, you have to go home and tell every single person you know you love them, because you never know when your last time is going to be,” senior student Jack Haimowitz told CBS Evening News anchor Jeff Glor Thursday.

The students said there was a fire drill earlier in the day, so they first thought there was another fire drill when the shooting started a few minutes after 2 p.m.

“We went downstairs they were screaming, ‘Code red, code red,’ and they were saying, ‘Keep on going, go back up,’” sophomore Ariana Calamia told Glor. “It was hard to believe that someone — an individual — would have this much power.”

Sierra Damiani, another sophomore, told Glor that some of her classmates were not aware of what was happening until they started getting text messages from their parents.

“Our parents – who we didn’t tell anything too – started texting us and asking if we were okay, where we are, then we realized it was an active shooter,” Damiani said.

Freshman Kelsey Friend credited her teacher, Scott Beigel, with saving her life.

“[The gunman] shot and killed my teacher and my door was wide open and I was hiding in an open room that the shooter could have easily walked into and killed me,” Friend said. She described Beigel as an “amazing person,” who “will forever be in my heart and forever be my hero, because he basically saved my life.”

“If it wasn’t for him, I might not be here today,” Friend said.

Haimowitz said one of the victims was one of his best friends.

“I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to one of my best friends,” Haimowitz told Glor. “And I got to find out this morning that he didn’t make it. I have think what I am going to wear to his funeral now.”

“There were a lot of people we lost, and they were wonderful people with great families,” Damiani added. “Those families do not deserve what happened to them.”

When asked what it was like to be part of the national debate on gun violence, Haimowiz told Glor he did not think school shootings should be sensationalized.

“The best way to go about recovering from this is by providing support, love and attention to those who need it and then go about addressing a political agenda, instead of — because, within about an hour and a half of hearing that best friend’s got shot, I turn on the news’ livestream to see people were using this as an argument against gun control,” Haimowiz said.

Photo credit: CBS Evening News