What went right on the 2nd floor?

Sound of gunshots caused students, teachers to take action during Parkland school shooting

The algebra teacher and her students huddled in fear and silence in a corner of the darkened classroom, their only protection the door she had locked and the piece of blue construction paper she had hastily taped over the door’s window.

Shanthi Viswanathan and the children in her second-floor classroom had heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire from afar and instantly fell into active-shooter mode.

Now, they heard their doorknob rattle.

He was here.

After five seconds that felt like an eternity, he moved on.

In the end, Nikolas Cruz shot 34 people in the 1200 building of the Parkland school that day, killing 17 on the first and third floors.

But not a single person was hurt on the second floor.

Those on the first floor were taken by surprise that day and barely had a chance to react to the blasts of semiautomatic gunfire. On the third floor, students and teachers couldn’t clearly hear the gunshots below, and did not know they had a real shooter in their midst.

But on the second floor, the sound was unmistakable to many. Students and teachers took action.

The second-floor hallway was empty when Cruz ascended to it with his AR-15. A few of the classrooms happened to be unoccupied that afternoon. The students and teachers who were there had heard the definite sound of gunfire as Cruz stormed the first floor, and raced to the safety of locked classrooms.

Of the 10 classrooms on the second floor of the 1200 building, three were unoccupied and at least half had their door windows covered so the killer could not see in. Lights were out in at least five of the occupied rooms as students and teachers sheltered silently in safe corners.

“We had enough time to hide,” said second floor teacher Felicia Burgin. “We could actually hear the gunshots.”

She heard them when one of her students went to the restroom, leaving the classroom door propped open. Burgin heard three shots in a row. Then a pause. Then three in a row again.

“Is that gunshots?” she asked aloud. “It sounded like gunshots. I’ve been to a gun range before.”

The students heard it, too. They quickly ran to a far corner of the room. One turned off the lights. The door was set to lock when it was closed. They sat huddled. Some cried. Some were silent. Some took out their cell phones.

All of her students rushed to the same safe corner. They didn’t quite fit and if someone had been able to look through the window in the door they would have been seen, she said.

They stayed in place when the shooting set off a fire alarm. Because when amid gunfire, Burgin said, “You aren’t leaving the room no matter what.”

Things were different on the third floor, where Cruz’s initial first bursts of gunfire that day could not so clearly be heard. When the shooting set off the fire alarm throughout the building, students on the third floor swarmed into the open hallway, thinking they were in the midst of a fire drill.

Ernest Rospierski, a teacher on the third floor, noted another critical difference that helped those on the second floor — smaller class sizes.

Most of the second-floor classes were English or math, which are capped by the state at 25 students, said Rospierski, who teaches an Advanced Placement European History class with 37 kids.

“If I have 35 or more [students], like in classrooms in the first and third floor, there is not enough room” to hide, he said. “They were able to get away from the window – he didn’t have any easy targets.”

Sophomore Brooke Wofchuck, of Coral Springs, was in the second floor of the 1200 building in Mrs. Catherine Britt’s math class when she heard three pops rang out.

Wofchuck said she immediately stared directly at the teacher.

“Those sound like gunshots,” her teacher said, “everyone get to the side of the room where we can’t be seen.”

They ran to one side and ducked. Someone turned off the lights.

“I remember sitting next to someone and we grabbed hands and started to pray, ‘God, please save us.’ We were beyond low, just whispering. My teacher was holding a bunch of kids in her arms,” since so many of the students were crying, she said.

She has praise for her teacher: “Miss Britt handled it so calm.”

In Viswanathan’s secondfloor class, their door knob rattled as they huddled tightly in a taped off corner, lights out.

“He was at my door trying to get in,” said Viswanathan, who had guided her students into hiding, largely on a hunch.

Mrs. V., as the math teacher is known, had already taken every step possible to protect the children in her classroom even before she knew they were in danger.

“I was not absolutely sure, but I had a hunch something was wrong,” she said. “I knew something had to be done quickly.”

She had locked the door before class that day. Weeks before, she had taped off part of the classroom next to the door to serve a “safe space” or “hard corner” for students to hide.

When she heard the sound of gunfire, she directed her students to lie on the floor in designated spots. She placed a piece of paper on the rectangular window of the door and blocked the view of anyone trying to look in. Then she turned off the light. The killer moved on to another room.

Her actions are considered a textbook example of how to elude an active shooter.

Viswanathan said she had received little training but her instincts helped save lives.

A “Code Red” training on Jan. 11, had tipped her off to the idea of covering her door window to obstruct the gunman’s view.

She had too many students to safely fit into the hard corner, she said.

“If I had 15 kids maybe I would have been able to hide them all,” she said. Instead she directed about a half-dozen students to lie on the floor on the other side of the class, where she huddled with them. The only thing protecting them from gunfire was a piece of paper covering the window.

Sarah “Coco” Bentaieb, a junior in Mrs. V’s math class, said she could hear students who were not in their classroom screaming and crying.

“Knowing there was danger outside of the door, not knowing who was going to shoot through, that was the scariest part, the unknown,” she said.

A couple doors down, Chris Mathew and his students held their collective breath as the killer paused at their darkened door.

“Nobody here,” Mathew said he heard the killer say.

Staff Writer Stephen Hobbs contributed to this report.