Feb 15, 2008 8:19 am US/Central
Through Their Eyes: Firsthand Accounts From NIU
(Northwest Herald)
Dan O'Connor
Dan O'Connor, a senior at NIU, thought he'd miss only a review session in his ocean science class, GEOL 104.
The decision to skip class might have saved his life.
"I go occasionally, and we have a test on Tuesday," he said. "I thought it'd be a relaxed class, so I didn't go."
Instead, O'Connor was spared from the horror of being in the classroom as the shooting occurred. Not realizing that it was his class that had been involved, O'Connor worried about his friends. He didn't know that it had happened at his class until his roommate, who was on campus at the time, told him that it was Cole Hall where the shooting occurred.
O'Connor then realized how close he had come to being in that classroom.
"When I found out, it kind of freaked me out a bit," he said.
– Benjamin Steckler, Daily Chronicle
Kyle Wattles
"I was just sitting in my lecture, and a guy came in through the lecture hall stage door with a gun," Kyle Wattles said. "I didn't really think anything of it when I first saw him. ... I just thought it was a joke thing.
"He started shooting, and I just got down and ran out."
He didn't grab his things. "I just ran out of there as fast as I could."
He heard two shots from the shotgun and didn't see any other weapons.
Wattles described the gunman as "a skinny white guy" about 6 feet tall, wearing a black shirt and black coat, a black beanie, and dark pants, which were possibly cargo pants.
"I had no idea [this would happen] ... it just seemed like a normal day, everything was fine until this happened," he said.
– Kate Weber, Daily Chronicle
Kendall Thu One what-if kept running through Kendall Thu's mind when he heard of the shooting.
What if it had been three hours earlier?
Just hours before, Thu, an associate professor of anthropology at NIU, had been teaching a class in the same lecture hall where the shooting occurred.
"If this person would have come three hours earlier," he said. "I would have been facing the same prospect as the professor who was there."
The prospect of being in that position is one that left him shaken.
"When you're standing up there lecturing, someone could sneak up beside you or behind you without you knowing it," he said.
Hearing of the shooting by e-mail, Thu said his department head told him that the course's instructor had been wounded as he ran from the classroom. In a neighboring building, the instructor received first aid from a secretary.
The situation is all too familiar to Thu. In 1991, while a graduate student at the University of Iowa, he was on campus when a student opened fire in the physics building, killing five people and himself.
His experience there kept the possibility of a shooting in the back of his mind, but he said it's impossible to ever truly expect something so terrible to happen – even after a scrawled threat on a bathroom wall in a residence hall shut down NIU for a day a few months ago.
"It's one thing to write graffiti on a bathroom wall," he said. "It's another to stand up on a stage gunning people down."
– Benjamin Steckler, Daily Chronicle
Mike Melby Mike Melby, 23, a senior at NIU and resident of St. Charles, was sitting in class in Watson Hall when word of the shooting started moving across campus.
He said those in his class learned from other students moving across campus about what was happening.
From there, the teachers corralled all the students back into their classrooms while they awaited instructions from authorities.
A few minutes later, a message was posted on the NIU Web site from administration advising students of the situation and to await the "all clear" from authorities.
But an hour later, that message still hadn't come, so students and teachers alike began to leave the classrooms and lecture halls in which they were huddled.
At 4:15 p.m., Melby was wandering alone on campus near Annie Glidden Road and Lucinda Avenue, taking photos with his cell phone of the more than 20 ambulances and fire engines on the scene.
He had not yet learned of the casualty toll.
When informed of the possibility that more than three students were dead and almost 18 shot, Melby struggled to maintain his composure, fighting back tears.
He said the lack of communication left him almost as shaken as the shooting itself.
"The whole system seemed pretty ridiculous," Melby said. "If we didn't have a computer in the classroom, we would have never learned what was going on."
He said he felt like he was living in a bad dream.
"It's just surreal," Melby said. "I can't even fully comprehend this right now.
"It feels like I should be waking up."
– Jonathan Bilyk, Kane County Chronicle
Phil Weckerle
Freshman Phil Weckerle said he was walking back to his residence hall from class about 3:15 p.m. when he saw students running out of a dorm.
"The second I got back to my dorm, people told me there was a shooting," he said.
"You never dream something like this is going to happen at your school."
Weckerle, 19, called home to Naperville to tell his parents he was OK.
"I'm a little shook up, though," he said.
Weckerle said that while his dorm, Douglas Hall, was on lockdown, he watched news reports, hearing the number of injuries and fatalities grow with each update, not sure what to believe.
Many rumors circulated among students in dorms, Weckerle said, adding that he first heard the gunman was in custody and then heard he was dead.
– Kate Thayer, Kane County Chronicle
Molly English Molly English, 19, of Batavia was in her dorm when a fellow student said she heard a gunshot.
"This is so scary," said English, a freshman psychology major. "They are suggesting we stay in our dorm. They're patting everyone down and checking."
Her friend, Emmanuel Sullivan, 20, a sophomore chemistry major from Berkeley, had a 2 p.m. chemistry class Thursday in one of the lecture auditoriums at Cole Hall.
But he overslept when taking a nap and missed both his class and the shooting.
"I worked a shift from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. the night before," Sullivan said. He said he worked as a security guard at another residence hall.
"I went to an 8:30 a.m. class, but since my next class was not until 2 p.m., I figured I could take a nap and go to class," Sullivan said. "But I overslept. I got up at 2:30 p.m."
Sullivan said he felt lucky to have missed his class and had trouble grasping the reality of what happened.
"I don't even believe it to the fullest," Sullivan said. "It's crazy."
– Brenda Schory, Kane County Chronicle
Sarah Duffy Sarah Duffy, a junior at NIU and resident of Dixon, was driving away from campus when she received the news through a cell-phone text message from a friend.
"I can't believe that happened at my school," Duffy said. "You hear about it all over the country, but you never think it's going to happen to you."
She said she left her afternoon classes early Thursday, just minutes before the shooting began, because she wasn't feeling well.
"I actually just left class early, and it's a good thing I did," Duffy said.
Duffy commutes to class and isn't certain how she will feel about returning to class when the schedule resumes.
"It's real scary," Duffy said. "I'm just glad I'm not there."
She passed by Cole Hall shortly before the shooting happened when the public relations class she had been in was let out early.
Duffy had taken an exam at 9 a.m. Thursday in the same Cole Hall lecture room where the shootings occurred.
"It's kinda creepy, you know, that I was in there the same day it happened," Duffy said.
– Sauk Valley Newspapers
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