On September 27, 2006, I was working out of state when I received a phone call from my husband about our daughter. “Claire, I have terrible news. There is a hostage situation at Chelsea’s school. He has explosives and guns, and I can’t reach Chelsea.”
I rushed to my hotel and started throwing my clothes into my suitcase. I turned on the news; there on CNN they were showing aerial shots of Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado. It was surreal.
Work called: They had found me a seat on the next flight out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, one hour away.
I was a wreck. As we taxied on the runway, the pilot told us to turn off our cell phones. It was so hard to turn off my phone, knowing I would have no way to communicate with anyone for the next 1.5 hour flight.
When I got off the plane, my phone lit up with messages. My husband called: “She is safe.”
I was with Chelsea when she learned that 16-year-old Emily Keys had been shot in the head by the gunman, when she tried to escape.
The trauma of that day haunts us still.