Four years ago in Parkland, my world came apart. Now I’m putting it back together.
Chocolates, teddy bears, love letters, and smiles were everywhere that day. The sun was shining, music was playing in the courtyard, and young couples were the center of attention. It was a school day like any other, but it was Valentine’s Day, and thoughts of love filled the air — at least for a time.
Students left their third period class, said goodbye to their friends, and were ready for their last class of the day so they could go home to their loved ones. Little did they know that some would not get the chance.
Right after my classmate walked in from the bathroom, right before the door had completely closed, I heard one of the scariest sounds of my life.
It was a gas bomb filling the hallway with fog right outside my classroom, making it impossible for us to see anything. “Everyone get down on the ground now!” my teacher yelled, with fear in her voice. The doorknob was moving rapidly, as if someone was forcing it to open. After that, I remember hearing gunshots, screams, and cries for help.
I remember people desperately running outside my classroom window, shots fired everywhere, and 911 calls. I remember lifeless bodies on the ground, puddles of blood on the floors, and a river of policemen. My mind was in a state of complete shock and my body felt numb.
My school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was a crime scene, filled with emergency personnel dragging dead kids of my age into ambulances. I was 14. Fourteen years old when I had to watch the news tell me I had just lived through one of the worst school shootings in the history of America.
But when it really hit me was when I had to see my friend’s name and photo on CNN saying she was one of the 17 who died in this tragedy. “Alyssa Alhadeff, 14, killed.” My first friend in high school, my friend whom I saw that day and waved “hi” to in the hallway right before I walked into the classroom that changed my life forever.
The mass shooting scarred not just the whole community, but the United States and the entire world. I was one of its survivors, just like many other young people who are now entering adulthood and making a life for themselves. But back in 2018, we were simply kids — teenagers who had death right at their fingertips.
It’s now been four years since this tragedy, but survivors still feel the trauma and the loss as if it was yesterday. Some, like me, are currently continuing their studies at the University of Central Florida here in Orlando. I decided to talk to a couple of them and ask how they’re feeling about this year’s February 14th.
It’s now been four years since this tragedy, but survivors still feel the trauma and the loss as if it was yesterday.
‘It changed him forever’
Caitlin Crory, part of the graduating class of 2020 from Stoneman Douglas and now a UCF sophomore, is one of them. That day she heard the fire alarm go off during class. Her teacher was told to go down to the bus loop with all the students. That is when they found out the school had called a Code Red drill, so they ran into the closest classroom and hid. Crory was there with about 70 other students and staff.
Her brother was in the building where the shooting was happening, with no communication at all. That was her biggest worry throughout her whole experience. For an hour inside a closet, she was just sitting there wondering whether her brother was alive or not.
“His experience was something I wish I could live for him, considering he was a freshman,” Crory says. “It was something absolutely mind-blowing, it changed him forever. I don’t have the same brother that I did who left for school on Valentine’s Day. He came back a different kid,” she says.
Her brother was on the third floor of the 1200 building and was halfway down the stairs when he saw the gunman right below him. He sprinted back up into his classroom.
After that day, Crory had to watch her brother go from carefree and happy to someone who was absolutely torn down by this tragedy.
“Processing this was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Crory says.
“I grew up in Parkland,” Crory continues. “It’s a small city. It was a really tight community and right after it happened it broke the bubble — not only the one we had of our town. (It) broke us into a magnifying glass across the whole world.”
She says a lot of rage and anger still lives in her heart and in many other survivors’ hearts as well, because the gunman’s trial remains unfinished. The proceedings have been delayed multiple times — even after he pleaded guilty to murdering 17 people and injuring 17 more. The trial is now scheduled for April.
“Four years later we’re still talking about someone who, in my opinion, doesn’t deserve to be alive,” Crory says.
The building where the shooting occurred cannot be taken down until after the trial passes because of valuable evidence inside it. It remains on campus as a constant reminder of all the lives lost and the trauma acquired from that day.
“A lot of people are desensitized to this
type of stuff because we’ve seen it so much now that they accept the fact that someone came into a school, a place where people are learning, and ended lives and scarred thousands of people.” Crory says.
She says moving away from her small hometown helped immensely in her healing process and has helped many other MSD alumni too. She felt that she could not stay in the place that brought back so many hurtful memories because she would not succeed in her education there.
“It helps me being at this school (UCF),” Crory says. “Now I’m in a sorority and in a community that is not centered around something so horrible.”
She felt she could fully process things on her own at UCF, and go back home as a happier person.
“Having not moved away I would definitely not be where I am today, I would not have accomplished as much,” Crory says.
However, she knows she is not done healing by any means. She still has a long way to go because “there are going to be things in all stages of life that will bring me right back to when I was 16, sitting in that classroom.”
‘After that, nothing was normal’
Mia Newberg is another UCF student and a 2020 MSD alumna. She was in the building right next to the 1200 where it all occurred. Her teacher knew immediately something was not right when he heard the fire alarm go off and saw no one walk outside. He told his students to go to the back of the classroom and made sure they were okay.
“I texted my parents that I loved them because I didn’t know if I was going to see them again,” Newberg says.
She had always felt safe in Parkland, a community known for its great schools and calm environment, so she could not imagine the magnitude of the situation at that moment while hiding in her classroom.
Reality started to hit Newberg when she ran outside to the street across the school and found out that two of her close friends had passed — Martin Duque and Alyssa Alhadeff.
“That’s when my life changed forever,” she says.
One of the hardest parts for her: She was not just dealing with her own traumatic experience, but also that of her boyfriend at the time, who lost his brother. Having to be an emotional support for someone so close
to her, who experienced a loss like that, was extremely difficult.
“To have to emotionally take care of someone who really, really, went through it since he lost his brother, was hard,” Newberg says. “That was a constant reminder of everything.”
It was going to be their first Valentine’s Day together. Instead they never really got to have that. She was beside him for the past four years and never got to experience this holiday because of their losses.
“It was a few months of normalcy, and after that nothing was ever really normal,” Newberg says.
Even though now she feels a lot safer at UCF, she is always on the lookout for anyone suspicious, and she knows all her exits when she walks into a room. She always has an escape plan in case anything happens’.
“My freshman year (at UCF) the fire alarm went off at my dorm at 3 a.m.,” she says. “There was apparently a threat in the building. I was freaking out. It was so hard to leave the room. All of this is the residual trauma that living a tragedy at such a young age left all its victims.”
Newberg was on the high school’s soccer team with Alhadeff, and they formed a very close friendship. They had practices five days a week together, played in the same position, and even physically looked similar. She is sure that if Alyssa were still alive, they would still be friends to this day.
Her passing was extremely hard on the whole team, and from that day on every game they played was for No. 8 — Alyssa’s number.
It was really hard for Newberg to go back and play soccer again for the next two years because “I felt like a part of me was missing,” she says.
Her parents moved away from Parkland, and so Newberg doesn’t have to face the school or the building where everything took place. She says this is a big part of what has helped her heal.
Newberg also expressed gratitude to UCF for caring about those who went to Marjory Stoneman Douglas and experienced this horrible trauma. She refers to the time when the faculty sent out an email to all MSD alumni expressing concern about them because of media coverage of the gunman’s trial over the past few months.
She says she was in shock at how thoughtful the university was. Not only was the email sent out, but she also received a list of helpful resources for survivors — including a support workshop especially for ex-Stoneman Douglas students.
“People still care,” she says. “This hasn’t just gone away.”
Now she makes sure she lives life with no regrets and takes advantage of every opportunity — because she knows the 17 victims who were killed will never be able to do that.
“You want to live for them and do your best for them,” she says.
“Four years later I’m still angry,” Newberg says. “At some point I hope to find peace, but I haven’t found peace yet and I don’t know how long that is going to take.”
The trauma still haunts me
As for me, I can definitely say that day marked a before and an after in my life. That innocent and carefree 14-year-old stayed in that English classroom and never left. I have never been the same since then. Whether it is feeling like my heart stops when I hear a loud noise or see a strange man, or having panic attacks whenever the fire alarm goes off, or looking behind me all the time when I’m walking alone — so many things trigger me now, and make me go right back to when I was hiding underneath that desk.
Moving away from Parkland has helped me in some ways, but has also hurt me the most in others. It is my first time living on my own without my parents, so I have felt completely out of my safe bubble that I had back home, completely out of my comfort zone, and in an extremely unknown environment.
My trauma has definitely come back to haunt me when I least expect it. Those anxiety attacks were constant during my first semester at UCF. I was always on edge, and always had something weighing on my chest. But fortunately I had the strength to overcome those feelings and now I am extremely happy in Orlando. I feel like I’ve finally found my place and I am continuing to heal more each day.
I am a much happier person now, with many goals and an ambition to make all my dreams come true. My light is finally shining again after being turned off for so long.
One thing I can thank this experience for was sparking my love for journalism. I talked to several news channels that day and told my story as clearly as if I were a professional doing it. Reporters would finish the interview and say how amazed they were at the perfect way I put words together, and I believed it. Since then I knew I wanted to make an impact in the world by telling others’ stories like mine that would touch millions of hearts. I knew I wanted to find those individuals who have meaningful anecdotes that need to be heard by the whole world.
This tragedy taught me how short life really is — how little time we actually have on this earth. Everything we’ve ever known can change in an instant, and that’s why we have to live each day as if it’s our last. We have to say “I love you” more often, and hug our loved ones a little tighter. But all this especially showed me that I am a lot stronger than I thought and now I feel like I can overcome any obstacle life throws my way.
Four years ago, lives were changed forever and none of us are the same people we were before that day. This Feb. 14, the Florida community honors the lives lost and the survivors’ resilience throughout these four years.