Knockin on Heaven's Door

Haiyen Cheng shouldn't have even been there.

Her advisor was out-of-town attending a conference, and had asked her to substitute. She is a Ph.D. candidate in computer science. She was at Norris Hall, site of the Virginia Tech shootings, where 33 people were killed, many in this hall, which is expected to be closed for the rest of the semester.

Haiyen was giving a lecture, when she heard a loud noise, which she thought was construction. Then, she heard the noise some more, which sounded like shots. A student and her went to the door to check what was going on. They peeked out, and saw a guy with a gun, and immediately went back in the room. It was fortunate, the gunman didn't come immediately to the room.

This gave time for some students to suggest barricading the door, so they put a table against the door (which fortunately opened in), and kept the door shut. Meanwhile, everyone stayed low.

The shooter, Cho Seung Hui, knocked loudly on the door, wanting to get in, and then shot at the door several times, and shot a few more times, before eventually giving up. There was some luck that he had no idea why the door was closed (mainly students near the ground leaning against the table, blocking the door) and aimed at hip level or above, and missing potential victims.

Eventually, the police would come in and the people could leave the class.

Were it not for the quick thinking of a few students who were able to barricade the door (computer science majors!), the death toll could have been even higher. While some students wanted to jump out, Haiyen advised against it, since they were high up, and the window was tiny, so the shooter would have had to do some work to get in from there.

Haiyen seemed remarkably calm after just a harrowing incident, and was able to conduct an interview rather lucidly, fortunate that she and her class were able to count themselves as one of the lucky ones.