In the classroom: A mad dash to escape

Some look back, remembering the first sign something was wrong -- a door slamming loudly.

Some look ahead, wondering when they'll be ready to re-enter Cole Hall, the scene of Thursday's deadly shooting spree.

The students sitting in the introductory geology class at Northern Illinois University agree survival instinct overtook shock as soon as the first shot was fired.

First, a rear maintenance door on the stage flew open, slamming against a wall.

"It was very, very, very loud," said Aaron Haverty, 24, who was sitting six rows from the front of the lecture hall.

Jillian Martinez, a freshman from Carpentersville, was sitting near the back.

"No one ever uses that door, so I thought it was weird when I saw it open out of the corner of my eye," she said.

It was off to the right of the stage, against a back wall. The professor was standing to the left.

John Giovanni was six rows from the back of the large lecture hall, watching the clock as the last 15 to 20 minutes of class ticked away.

"It's about 2:55 and the door kicks open," said Giovanni, from Des Plaines.

Yosrah Johnson was closer to the front of the hall, getting tired, she said -- and like Giovanni, with one eye on the clock.

Then the door flew open and the man stepped out. Martinez described him as a white male carrying a big gun.

"He was quiet. I don't even know what he was wearing," she said.

"I look up and it's a guy standing there in dark clothes and he's holding a shotgun," said Giovanni. "He didn't say anything when he opened the door."

He appeared to be in his early 20s, and Haverty, a Navy veteran, said it looked like he wielded a 12-gauge shotgun.

Johnson didn't look at the shooter, or the gun.

She looked to her instructor for guidance.

"He was terrified," Yosrah said.

Confusion kicked in quickly.

"It was one of those moments where you're like, 'What are you doing here?' " said Haverty, of Woodstock.

"I didn't know if it was a drill or what," Giovanni said.

Then the shooting started.

"It just happened," Martinez said. "I saw a flash and then there were people screaming and dodging for the door."

The whole episode seemed surreal to Haverty.

"It didn't seem like he had any goal in mind other than busting in and opening fire," Haverty said.

Giovanni saw it from a different perspective.

The shooter "shot into the middle of the audience," as he stood in the front of the class on a raised platform, or stage, where the professor lectures from.

"I think he was just trying to clock as many people as he could," Giovanni said. "He walked onto the stage. He was one foot from the professor. … I didn't see the second gunshot …"

But he heard it, he said, on his way out -- there were "a lot of screaming, a lot of people bleeding."

Johnson said it was "mayhem, panic, running, screaming, crawling."

The gunman shot and shot again, Johnson said.

"My friend stopped and someone told her, 'Run, he's reloading,'" she said.

Johnson turned to the aisle, hit the floor, then race-crawled the length of the auditorium, skinning her knees in the process and losing sight of her friend.

Students tripped over each other as they scrambled for the rear doors of the auditorium, Martinez said.

"It was seriously a matter of seconds and I was out of the room," Martinez said. "A lot of people were falling over because everyone was trying to get out of there."

No one had time to react, Haverty said. They just hit the floor, or turned and ran, or crouched in the seats, then bolted.

Not much went through Haverty's mind at that point: just the need to escape.

"It was just 'go, go, go,' " he said. "I had tunnel vision."

Giovanni had the same reaction.

"When I saw the first shot, I knew … I booked. I jumped over people because people were just sitting there.

"It happened so fast."

More than 100 other students were in the same boat, running into and over each other in a mad dash to escape the room.

"It just erupted into everyone screaming," Haverty said.

One student fell -- and others stopped, grabbed the student and rushed along with the fleeing crowd.

Even then, in the middle of panic, no one wanted to leave another behind, Haverty said.

The students raced outside the building, wanting to get as far away from the lecture hall as was possible.

After Giovanni escaped, he heard more shots, which he thinks were from a pistol rather than a shotgun.

Haverty, like many others, grabbed his cell phone and dialed 911 as the raced for neighboring buildings and parking lots.

Most students sought refuge at the Holmes Student Center, Martinez said.

"It is probably a five-minute walk, but I got there pretty fast," said Martinez, whose parents picked her up from campus Thursday afternoon. "I could still hear the shooting when I got to the student center."

When Giovanni got outside, he said the kids on campus were just going about life as usual, without a clue of what was happening. He said he had lost a shoe bolting out of the classroom, so he asked another student if he could drive him to his car, which was parked pretty far away.

Johnson reconnected with her friend later in the day, each wanting to make sure the other was safe. They were. They were lucky.

Martinez, a music education major, said she will spend the weekend at home before deciding when to return to campus.

"I have two classes in that same lecture hall," Martinez said. "I am not sure if I can go in there for a while. It's not going to be the same."