Texas shooting survivor: ‘I’ve always kind of felt eventually it would happen here, too’

A student who survived Friday’s high school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, said she wasn’t surprised the shooting happened at her school.

The student, identified as Paige, told the local ABC News affiliate that she was seated in a classroom a few doors down from where the shooting started.

“I heard really loud booms, and I didn’t know what they were at first,” Paige said. She said she realized the sounds were coming from a gun once she heard students screaming.

{mosads}

Paige said she took shelter with other students in an area behind a stage after they were told to wait there before trying to flee the campus.

She added that she and the other students had trouble trying to remain calm but said there wasn’t a moment when she felt like the shooting wasn’t real.

“It’s been happening everywhere,” Paige told the station. “I’ve always kind of felt eventually it would happen here, too.”

If you watch nothing else about the mass shooting at #SantaFe High School in Texas, watch this.

Her name is reportedly Paige.#SantaFeHighSchool pic.twitter.com/Xwy5VMCOTK

— Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) May 18, 2018

“I wasn’t surprised, I was just scared,” she continued.

At least eight deaths were reported Friday after a shooter opened fire at Santa Fe High School outside of Houston.

The school went on lockdown around 8 a.m. after someone entered the campus carrying what appeared to be an AR-15-style rifle, a pistol, a shotgun and pipe bombs and opened fire, the Houston Chronicle reported.

President Trump on Friday condemned the shooting, calling it an “absolutely horrific attack.”

“This has been going on too long in our country, too many years, too many decades now,” Trump said during a prison reform event at the White House, hours after the attack occurred.

“My administration is determined to do everything in our power to protect our students, secure our schools and to keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves and to others,” he said.

Trump made similar comments after 17 people were killed in the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. 

In the shooting’s aftermath, Trump vowed to support new gun laws and take on the National Rifle Association, though the plan that was ultimately released from the White House did not uphold a number of his initial pledges.

Updated at 1:44 p.m.