Heroes

Another hero. 

Monday’s toll inside Virginia Tech’s Norris Hall might have included 11 more students had it not been for a long, rectangular table and a quick-thinking senior who used it to deflect the rampage of his fellow classmate.

Zach Petkewicz said he didn’t recognize the sounds that pierced the door and cinder-block walls of his classroom as gunshots until he heard a scream from the hallway of the engineering building.

“The girls in my class peeked out in the hall and saw a gunner come out of a classroom with his gun pointed down,” Petkewicz told CNN.

“They immediately slammed the door shut, told us, everybody kind of went into a frenzy, a panic. I hid behind the podium and then just kind of looked up at the door. Like, there’s nothing stopping this guy from just coming in. And so I said, ‘We need to barricade this door.’ “

Petkewicz described his state of mind unabashedly: “I was completely scared out of my mind originally, just went into a cowering position, and then just realized you have got to do something.” (Watch Petkewicz describe how he kept his wits about him)

Petkewicz and two other students shoved a table against the door and held it there as gunshots continued to ring out from the hallway outside the classroom.

“He came to our door, tried the handle and couldn’t get in because we were pushing up against it—and tried to force his way in and got the door to open up about 6 inches—and then we just lunged at it and closed it back up and that’s when he backed up and shot twice into the middle of the door, thinking we were up against it trying to get him out.”