‘This Can’t Be Real’

As I was standing there I heard there were injured people inside Neptune Hall [one of the halls adjacent to Cole]. My city editor and I talked our way into Neptune and as we were walking around trying to make sense of it because it was still crazy in the building--not more than 15 to 20 minutes after the shooting.

I came down the steps and I saw a guy sitting there and there was blood on the floor, and [I] checked on him and he was being tended by some of the people there. They put towels on the back of his neck as he had been shot in the back of his head. I checked his breathing and made sure he didn't have any other wounds and made sure he wasn't gushing blood underneath his stuff.

A cop was there and this is when I stepped out of the reporter's role obviously and said, "Look, I'm a Corpsman, maybe I can help. Give me some gloves." He gave me some gloves and I swiped his first-aid bag and I took off through the building. I've been working at the paper for two semesters, but I've got five years of real life programming. It definitely overrode anything in those two semesters.

There was a lot of tension. There wasn't a lot of screaming, it wasn't running around. The people that were there were more than willing to listen to [what] the police had to say. The first responders did a great job. All I had to do was put gauze on [victims' wounds] in place of T-shirts and paper towels.

A couple of other students, one who was an Eagle Scout and one who was a lifeguard, said they were willing to help. I said, "This is what we need to do. Get on line and talk to every single person you see. If they are not hurt, they go to this side. If they are hurt, my name is Jeff and they should come this way and call my name." They did a wonderful job. They made it as easy as possible.

We found two other victims. With the help of some of the people sitting there we managed to wrap them up and get them to one spot. None of these injuries are life-threatening injuries. I told the policeman to get on the radio. We have three here, they are not emergency. We will get them on the ambulance as soon as we can but they are doing OK.