'I thought I was going to die' — Norwin students recount active shooter false alarm

Several Norwin High School students said they spent about 15 minutes of their Monday morning class time fearing for their lives or wondering if they were part of a surprise drill after an alarm sounded to announce an active shooter or other intruder on campus.

As district administrators planned to meet Tuesday to review the situation, students at the North Huntingdon school said they still have questions about why the alarm was triggered and how students and staff responded.

“Everyone was kind of looking around, they didn't know what it was,” said senior Lauren Hohman, 18, who was in anatomy class when the alarm went off. She recognized the alarm but wasn't sure how to react. Her teacher seemed scared as well, she said.

Hohman was one of several students who said that they experienced emergency drills earlier in the school year. But what happened Monday was different, as students were not informed ahead of time that there would be such a drill, she said.

The alarm sounded around 11:40 a.m., according to a statement from the district. Some students were in class. Others were in the cafeteria eating lunch.

About 1,600 students attend the high school.

Norwin, like many other area districts, has faced threats to school buildings since a Feb. 14 shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school in which 17 people were killed.

Three bomb threats were made at Norwin High School over 10 school days in February and March. An unidentified 14-year-old male student will be charged with three counts each of terroristic threats, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct through juvenile court.

At least 51 threats have been made against schools, students or teachers in southwestern Pennsylvania since the Florida school shooting. At least 14 juveniles across the region, ages 12 to 17, face terroristic threats charges in connection with such investigations.

Following the alarm and lockdown Monday, district officials emailed Norwin students and parents to say that the alarm “was inadvertently pressed” and that the event “provided all staff and students the opportunity to practice safety procedures.”

Assistant Superintendent Natalie McCracken confirmed Tuesday that the alarm, which is reserved for emergencies other than a fire and referred to as a “panic alarm,” was triggered by accident by a district employee.

“You could associate this with any situation that would require a lockdown,” McCracken said of the alarm. This would include active shooter or other intruder situations, she said.

“In no way did we say that this was a planned drill,” McCracken said, adding that she would look into whether there was any miscommunication with students following the incident.

Such emergency drills typically take place at a scheduled time, she said.

“We have not done at the high school, or at any of the buildings, one of these drills during lunch,” McCracken said, adding that there have been fire drills during lunch, “but not this particular panic alarm drill.”

Emergency drills take place twice each year, in the fall and the spring, and advance notice is sent to parents and students when those drills are scheduled, she said.

Staff and students are trained to follow the ALICE emergency protocol — alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate — in the event of an active shooter situation, McCracken said.

The first steps are to alert and lock down; from there, the adults in charge should make decisions based on whatever information is available, McCracken said. That could include evacuating the building.

About 700 students on Monday were evacuated from the school building by adults in charge, including 600 from the cafeteria and 100 from the choral rooms, McCracken said.

A small group of students went down the hill from the school towards Route 30, but administrators do not believe anyone went to Route 30, she said.

There was not a noticeable drop in attendance Tuesday, McCracken said.

Police arrived as students left the cafeteria, said Lt. Rod Mahinske, the department's ranking officer.

He said North Huntingdon police followed proper procedure in responding to the incident until school administration confirmed that it was a false alarm.

“They followed the protocol,” Mahinske said of the school district's response.

If some students ran to Route 30, “they did it on their own,” Mahinske said.

School board President Robert Perkins on Monday told the Tribune-Review that he had seen the administration's email that the panic alarm was set off accidentally and that the matter was handled, so he did not seek a further explanation.

Some students aren't satisfied with administrators' explanations.

“It shouldn't be an alarm that can be set off on accident,” said senior Madison Gregory, 18.

She said her math teacher initiated the lockdown procedure upon hearing the alarm and placed a special locking device on the classroom door.

But Gregory worries that not everyone knew what to do, adding that her younger sister, also a Norwin High student, was among the students who ran away from the building after hearing the alarm.

Junior Charlie Blenko praised his history teacher, Eric Bartels, who he said immediately went into action when the alarm sounded, pulling a metal stop from a desk drawer to force it under the door to prevent the classroom door from being opened.

He directed students to pile desks two-and-three high against the door and then told the students to sit down around the corners of the wall and back of the room. Blenko said Bartels stood by the door.

“He was ready to defend us at all costs,” Blenko said.

Blenko said the high school had sounded the panic alarm for students to know what it sounded like, but had never had a drill before and students were “in shock for a moment or so” after hearing it. Some students were in disbelief and others thought it was a drill, Blenko said.

After seeing the teacher's response and hearing from other students, “it gives me all the confidence in the world that the teachers have the training to do what they have to do,” to keep students safe in the case of an emergency.

Jada Reeves, 18, a Norwin senior, said she was in class with a substitute teacher when the alarm sounded. According to Reeves, the substitute struggled to attach a locking device to the door. Reeves said she felt like her only other option was to exit the classroom via a door that leads to a courtyard.

“We didn't know what else to do,” she said. “We couldn't get the door to lock, so we weren't going to stay inside.”

Reeves, who said she had knee surgery in January, opted to hop the fence that enclosed the courtyard to get away from the school building. She said she saw other students running out of the building, yelling and crying. She thought about her younger brother, also a student at the school, and worried about whether he was safe, she said.

“Yeah, I thought I was going to die,” Reeves said. “So I was hopping the fence.”

Emily Dodaro, also a senior, said a substitute teacher was leading her sixth-period calculus class when the alarm went off.

“A few of us then took initiative on our own and guided the class to move to the corner and grab textbooks, based on things that we have heard that other schools have done in these situations,” Dodaro said. “Some students even attempted to move desks to block the door, but our substitute told them to stop and to get in the corner, but then never proceeded to finish moving them.”

Some students were angry and wanted more of an explanation of why the alarm was triggered, Dodaro said.

“There were people crying, shaking, and feeling very nervous about these possible outcomes, that we in no way, shape, or form felt prepared for,” Dodaro said.

McCracken would not comment on the door devices used during a lockdown.

“We try not to share things that would in any way decrease the effectiveness of the procedures we put in place,” she said.

Substitute teachers are trained to employ the device that would lock the classroom, she added.

“None of those people reported anything to administration in terms of not being able to do that,” McCracken said of reported difficulties using the locking devices. “I'd want to hear that from an adult, that the adult said that they did not know how to use the device.”

Jamie Martines and Joe Napsha are Tribune-Review staff writers. Reach Martines at jmartines@tribweb.com, 724-850-2867 or on Twitter @Jamie_Martines. Reach Napsha at jnapsha@tribweb.com or 724-836-5252.