Melissa Falkowski is being hailed a hero after the quick-thinking language arts teacher packed 19 students in a supply closet to protect them from the gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday.
The massacre in Florida killing at least seventeen is the latest of mass shootings to strike the country, but it’s the hero stories arising amidst the chaos that is giving America a ray of hope.
Like assistant football coach Aaron Feis who died shielding students from bullets, Falkowski, too, put the life of the children above her own as former student Nikolas Cruz opened fire with an AR-15.
“I unlocked the door and let the kids in,” Falkowski said in an interview with MSNBC. “We followed the procedure to disappear, to move out of sight. I made the decision to move the kids into the closet. It was tight. We were in there for about 30 minutes.”
She told the students to stay put until they heard an announcement or the SWAT team came to get them.
“The kids were really scared; some of them were crying,” she said.
this was my teacher. i was in that closet. having to feel that fear and see all those people think they’re going to die is something no person should experience. https://t.co/4ysyB6HHHO
— Delaney Tarr (@delaneytarr) February 15, 2018
Thankfully, they had just had training on what to do in these types of emergencies about a month ago, and Falkowski believes that helped them handle the alarming situation.
“We had training about a month ago and we talked about these different scenarios and what to do,” she said. “It was very obvious that it wasn’t a drill. I made the decision that [the supply closet] was another layer between us and the active shooter.”
“On a personal level, it was really hard for me,” said Falkowski, explaining that her mom called in the middle of it all, adding to her angst while she was trying to take care of the kids.
Facebook
But unwilling to let her own fears get the best of her, the teacher swallowed her emotions and remained calm and collected in the face of danger.