Second alarm spurred hero teach to act
A math teacher at the Florida high school knew something just didn’t add up when the second fire alarm of the day sounded.
So instead of sending her students into the hallway for the supposed drill, Shanthi “Mrs. V’’ Viswanathan, an Algebra II instructor at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS, ordered them to the floor in a corner of her classroom — then put paper over the door’s window so no one could see inside, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
Outside, former student Nikolas Cruz began opening fire with an AR-15 assault rifle. He would eventually kill 17 people.
When a SWAT team finally arrived and knocked on her door, Viswanathan still refused to open it up, fearful it was the killer playing a trick on her.
“She said, ‘Knock it down or open it with a key. I’m not opening the door,’ ” said Dawn Jarboe, whose son, Brian, was in the classroom at the time.
So the SWAT team busted through the door.
“Some SWAT guy took out the window and cleared our room,” Jarboe’s son told her by text message, according to the report.
The mom hailed the teacher’s actions.
“She was quick on her feet,” Jarboe said of Viswanathan. “She used her knowledge. She saved a lot of kids.”
Three other school staffers died in their efforts to protect students that day.
School athletic director Chris Hixon, 49, a father and Army veteran, ran toward the sound of the shots and saved fleeing students, according to reports.
“I am torn,” his wife, Debbie Hixon, told People mag. “I am pissed off he did that because he left us. But knowing my husband, that’s just who he was. I knew he would be right there in the middle of what was going on as soon as I heard the shooting was happening. That was just who he was.”
Assistant football coach Aaron Feis, 37, jumped between students and the shooter, “selflessly shielding” them from the gunfire, according to a tweet on the school football program’s account.
Geography teacher Scott Beigel, 35, made sure students were safely inside his classroom, only to die as he tried to close and lock the door.
“When he opened the door, he had to relock it so that we could stay safe,” one of the students he saved, Kelsey Friend, told CNN. “But he didn’t get the chance.”