A student survivor of the Apalachee High School shooting said she will never feel safe returning to the scene of the massacre.
Ariel Bowling spoke on the Today Show about her feelings following Wednesday’s bloodshed.
“I just feel like you’re basically never safe anywhere… It doesn’t matter if there are police at school, it’s still not safe at all,” she said.
Her mother, Tabitha, added that her daughter had told her she would never return to school and described the situation as “traumatic”.
Bowling was among those evacuated from the scene shortly after suspected gunman Colt Gray, 14, opened fire, killing four people.
Ariel Bowling, pictured with her mother Tabitha, explained how she felt unsafe after surviving the shooting at Apalachee High School.
Students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and teachers Christina Irimie, 53, and Richard Aspinwall, 39, were identified as the victims.
Bowling was a mathematics student of Aspinwall’s and remembered him as a “kind-hearted man” who had “the kindest soul that ever lived.”
He said he was heading to the vending machine when chaos broke out.
“We heard gunshots and ran back into the room. We all piled on top of each other in the corner,” Bowling said.
The teenager called her mother amid the commotion, but hung up to try to call authorities.
“I heard five shots and then the phone went dead. I didn’t know if she was hurt. I was calling 911, I was so scared,” the mother explained.
The Winder, Georgia, massacre claimed the lives of four people and injured nearly a dozen more. Pictured: A mother and her children bow their heads in prayer during a vigil for the victims
After being given the all-clear, Bowling described the devastating scene as she was led out of the building.
“I saw a dead body on the ground, but it was kind of covered up, and I saw a woman with a gunshot wound to her leg. It was a really traumatic experience,” he said.
Nine victims were taken to hospitals with gunshot wounds, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
The shooting was reported at 10.23am and Gray turned himself in to police when he was arrested.
He has been charged with murder and is due to appear in court for the first time on Friday.
Authorities said an AR-style weapon was used in the deadly shooting and they are investigating how it came into the hands of the gunman.
Mason Schermerhorn, 14, an autistic student at Apalachee High School, was the first victim to be identified. He was among four people killed in the mass shooting.
Teachers Christina Irimie and Richard Aspinwall lost their lives in the tragedy.
Student Christian Angulo, 14, was also shot and killed in the senseless shooting.
Questions also remain about how he was able to enter the campus armed.
It has since emerged that Colt had been known to the FBI for at least a year and had previously been interviewed about threats made toward the school.
However, when investigators spoke to the teen and his father, they were assured that he had not been left unsupervised near his father’s hunting guns and was not responsible for the threats.
They found no probable cause for the arrest and did not confiscate any weapons, instead advising local schools to remain on alert.
Gray’s family has since issued a chilling threat to act “full throttle” in response to the news that he is being charged as an adult.
The teen’s aunt, Annie Polhamus Brown, took to Facebook after the incident to mention the problems she “faced” and say she will “take care of my nephew and whatever he needs on this side.”
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