Survivors tell their stories

With the shock from this morning's shootings wearing off, Ryan Knicely, a public relations major from Staunton, Va., said he and many others felt safe enough to stay in their dorm rooms overnight.

His friends seemed to have escaped, but with so many dead and injured, other students weren't as lucky, he said.

"This is worse than Columbine, and that's scary," he said.

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Chez Hughes, a sophomore from Virginia Beach, had a friend in the Norris Hall classroom where the bulk of the shootings occurred. "The shooter shot everyone," she said. "(After the shooting ended,) someone ran in and said, 'If you're not injured, stand up.' (Her friend) was the only one who stood up.

"He's an absolute wreck right now."

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A last-minute e-mail check before classes warned junior Nathan Graham away from a walk that would have put him squarely in harm's way this morning.

"I wasn't familiar with the return address and thought maybe someone was trying to be funny," said the Fishersville, Va., native. "Then I read the next message and knew I'd better stay away. I usually walk right through that building (where the shootings took place). I would have been there."

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Al Hall, a Monticello, Fla., resident, was on the phone with his daughter as she hid in the bathroom of the classroom building evacuated during the shooting.

Amber Hall, a 20-year-old sophomore on the school's basketball team, was with one of her roommates when she called her father to let him know what was going on.

"What the heck is in a person's mind to make them do this?" Hall asked. "It doesn't seem real. How can something like this happen in the world of modern technology?"

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It felt like every other Monday morning for Sam Denning.

The 23-year-old graduate student woke up about 9 a.m. ... checked his e-mail right before heading out the door, notifying students of the shooting. "I immediately thought to myself, 'I shouldn't go to class,"' he said.

"Every day, it seems you read stories similar to this and you never think it will ever happen to your school. Now it appears my school is connected to the worst shooting in U.S. history. Whether I knew one of the victims or not, this is going to affect me for the rest of my life."

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Joey Hall was on his way out of meetings with his football adviser at 7:45 a.m. when he saw the commotion at West Ambler Johnston Hall. He said he found out shortly thereafter that a shooting had taken place there.

"I don't understand: Why did the school not get locked down then?" Hall asked. "If school would have been shut down then, there's no telling how many people would have been saved."