Hokies, Part 1

I've made a deliberate point to not post about the Virginia Tech Massacre up till now, specifically because I would like to gather my thoughts first and see what else is being said before I join the chorus myself. I have been transfixed by this story since it started, and at times this week I've not felt like myself because of it. However, I just read this post relating a first-hand account of the shooting spree in Norris Hall and I had to pass it on. It is the most arresting version of the story I've read yet:

Gil's Story

It was about 9pm on April 16th, and Gil, Nell-Marie, Ellen and myself were in the hospital room in Roanoke. Gil said, “Can I have a tissue…there’s blood inside my nose.” We got him one, and as he cleaned the dried blood from inside his nose he said…”It’s not my blood…it’s from the guy who was on top of me….his blood was everywhere…on my face, in my eyes, my nose, my mouth…it was all over.” He said that the reason he was not killed must have been “all that blood” that covered him. “He must have thought that I was already dead”. It was the blood of the Indonesian student who had been seated beside Gil when it all started.

Almost 12 hours to the minute before Gil asked for the tissue that night, the carnage began. It was Monday morning, April 16th, about 9:20 am, when Gil, the Professor, and 13 other graduate students were interrupted, (the class began at 9am) by someone who opened the wooden classroom (about 20’ by 30’ in size) door and took up a “shooters” stance at the front of the room and began firing his semi-automatic 9mm pistol directly at students on the front row. He moved from his left to his right. Gil sat on the last chair in the front row, on the shooter’s right.