A student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had a lucky escape from Wednesday's tragic shooting after coming face-to-face with killer Nikolas Cruz moments before he opened fire and killed 17 people.
Chris McKenna, 15, told South Florida's The Sun Sentinel how he stumbled upon the gunman loading up his weapon with ammunition while he was making his way to the bathroom.
"You'd better get out of here," Cruz said, according to McKenna. "Things are gonna start getting messy."
According to The Sun Sentinel, McKenna froze for a second in fear before fleeing. As McKenna made his way out of the building, he saw assistant football coach Aaron Feis.
"I told him I saw a gun," McKenna said. "He said, 'let me go check it out'. Then he drove me to the baseball field, dropped me off, and went back to the school. That's the last I saw of him."
Tragically, Feis was among those who lost their lives at the hands of the assailant during the massacre.
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Three of McKenna's classmates were killed. A fourth was wounded. Cruz now stands charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.
"I'm in shock," said McKenna. "That's the only thing I can feel right now."
Students who knew the gunman have been speaking out, including one who wrote: "Nick attacked one of my friends once. He brought shotgun shells to school and made many threats against others. He had an insta [Instagram account] full of pictures of dead animals that he killed."
The student, who wrote that his parents had forbidden him from giving interviews, added: "Mental illness needs to be recognized or things like this happen. People i know are f***ing dead."
Cruz opened fire on students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on Wednesday. He set off a fire alarm to make people flood out of classrooms and into the hallways.
"Cruz stated that he was the gunman who entered the school campus armed with a AR-15 and began shooting students that he saw in the hallways and on the school grounds," a court document read.
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It is such a sad tragedy.
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