When I was 18 and a freshman in college, I was about 20 feet away from a homicide-suicide shooting. A man enraged with jealousy walked onto my campus in Tacoma, Washington, and sought out a professor in the music department to kill and then turned the gun on himself. A friend and I were walking up from the science lab to our dorms and just seconds before the shooting began, we parted ways. I headed to the administration building and she headed toward the dorm. A few moments later, I heard the shots. Boom, boom, in quick succession and then a pause before another boom.
At first I thought it was fireworks, but I remember the feelings in the air changed. It felt different and chilling. It was scary. Once I realized it was a shooting, I ran behind a tree. I don't remember how long I crouched behind that tree waiting. Time passed and I eventually decided to run. Without looking back, with my backpack still on my back, I ran toward the administration building. I remember running into the lobby and shouting that someone had a gun and someone had been shot. I have no idea how I knew that. I hadn't seen anything or heard anyone say anything. But maybe I had. My memories are jumbled. Everyone stared at me and some people looked at me like I was crazy. The students weren't responding so I ran to the back of the building and asked someone to call 911 (this was the world before cell phones). I don't remember going back to my dorm room after that. I was in a daze. My friend, the one who had walked toward her dorm and witnessed the entire incident, transferred schools a few semesters later. She was the one who gave the bloodied and already dead professor CPR. Unlike me, she knew the shooter was dead. The only thought I remember having while crouching behind the nearby tree was that I needed to get away. I was close and if the shooter picked a new target, he could find me there.
Looking back, I should have gone to a counselor after this experience. For years, I hated the Fourth of July because the fireworks reminded me of that shooting. I didn't have nightmares or flackbacks and I'm certain I didn't have PTSD, but it was upsetting and it probably would have helped to talk with someone. But the great thing is that it's never too late.
The first few chapters of "The Unthinkable" were really fascinating to read, both because it is very instructive by itself, but also because it offered me a framework for my reactions to that event. As I read through the phases of a disaster response, I remembered entering each one. The denial phase occurred when I thought the gunshots were fireworks. I'm not sure how long that phase lasted. It could have been minutes. I do remember time almost standing still. Then I saw a nearby tree and knew I needed to get behind it. My deliberation phase also probably lasted awhile. I crouched behind that tree calculating my risk. I was trying to decide it the shooter would come for me or if her or she would shoot me while I was running. My "disaster personality" as Amanda Ripley calls it, decided to run for it. And instead of dropping everything to make for a quicker getaway, I took everything with me. It doesn't make sense, but that's what I did. My disaster self also apparently doesn't rescue. I ran the other direction of the shooting, so it seems I'm not going to be the person to stop a shooter. But, it seems like I am the person who wants to alert authorities. It was my mission to get help. I remember not needing to convince people that there was indeed a shooting. When people didn't believe me I didn't stop to convince them, I just kept searching for someone who would take action as quickly as possible. Once they did, I felt my part was done. I left the scene, but I don't recall where I went.
My impressions of the phases are that they are quite simple. Denial, deliberation, action. But, as you can see from the length of the blog post and from the length of the reading, they are moments that last much longer than any normal moments. In disasters, seconds last minutes. It was really clear from the reading and my own experience that the way time is perceived changes. I think the time distortion and the assertion that you just don't know how you'll behave are my key takeaways from that school shooting experience. And Ripley illustrated the realities so well in her examples. It's a part of the human experience you see for only a few moments in your life and it's something you never really forget.
______________________________________________________________________
Interesting quotes from The Unthinkable (Introduction through chapter 2.)
The survival arc: denial (the initial shock), deliberation (we know something is wrong, but we don't know what to do about it), the decisive moment (taking action).
In a disaster, "Life becomes like molten metal. Old customs crumble, and instability rules." -Samuel Henry Prince
"Hazards have personalities" -Paul Slovic
Democratic societies breed distrust.
At first I thought it was fireworks, but I remember the feelings in the air changed. It felt different and chilling. It was scary. Once I realized it was a shooting, I ran behind a tree. I don't remember how long I crouched behind that tree waiting. Time passed and I eventually decided to run. Without looking back, with my backpack still on my back, I ran toward the administration building. I remember running into the lobby and shouting that someone had a gun and someone had been shot. I have no idea how I knew that. I hadn't seen anything or heard anyone say anything. But maybe I had. My memories are jumbled. Everyone stared at me and some people looked at me like I was crazy. The students weren't responding so I ran to the back of the building and asked someone to call 911 (this was the world before cell phones). I don't remember going back to my dorm room after that. I was in a daze. My friend, the one who had walked toward her dorm and witnessed the entire incident, transferred schools a few semesters later. She was the one who gave the bloodied and already dead professor CPR. Unlike me, she knew the shooter was dead. The only thought I remember having while crouching behind the nearby tree was that I needed to get away. I was close and if the shooter picked a new target, he could find me there.
Looking back, I should have gone to a counselor after this experience. For years, I hated the Fourth of July because the fireworks reminded me of that shooting. I didn't have nightmares or flackbacks and I'm certain I didn't have PTSD, but it was upsetting and it probably would have helped to talk with someone. But the great thing is that it's never too late.
The first few chapters of "The Unthinkable" were really fascinating to read, both because it is very instructive by itself, but also because it offered me a framework for my reactions to that event. As I read through the phases of a disaster response, I remembered entering each one. The denial phase occurred when I thought the gunshots were fireworks. I'm not sure how long that phase lasted. It could have been minutes. I do remember time almost standing still. Then I saw a nearby tree and knew I needed to get behind it. My deliberation phase also probably lasted awhile. I crouched behind that tree calculating my risk. I was trying to decide it the shooter would come for me or if her or she would shoot me while I was running. My "disaster personality" as Amanda Ripley calls it, decided to run for it. And instead of dropping everything to make for a quicker getaway, I took everything with me. It doesn't make sense, but that's what I did. My disaster self also apparently doesn't rescue. I ran the other direction of the shooting, so it seems I'm not going to be the person to stop a shooter. But, it seems like I am the person who wants to alert authorities. It was my mission to get help. I remember not needing to convince people that there was indeed a shooting. When people didn't believe me I didn't stop to convince them, I just kept searching for someone who would take action as quickly as possible. Once they did, I felt my part was done. I left the scene, but I don't recall where I went.
My impressions of the phases are that they are quite simple. Denial, deliberation, action. But, as you can see from the length of the blog post and from the length of the reading, they are moments that last much longer than any normal moments. In disasters, seconds last minutes. It was really clear from the reading and my own experience that the way time is perceived changes. I think the time distortion and the assertion that you just don't know how you'll behave are my key takeaways from that school shooting experience. And Ripley illustrated the realities so well in her examples. It's a part of the human experience you see for only a few moments in your life and it's something you never really forget.
______________________________________________________________________
Interesting quotes from The Unthinkable (Introduction through chapter 2.)
The survival arc: denial (the initial shock), deliberation (we know something is wrong, but we don't know what to do about it), the decisive moment (taking action).
In a disaster, "Life becomes like molten metal. Old customs crumble, and instability rules." -Samuel Henry Prince
"Hazards have personalities" -Paul Slovic
Democratic societies breed distrust.
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