It was an ordinary day at Apalachee High School, but for junior Lyela Sayarath, the morning quickly turned into a nightmare. She had been sitting next to 14-year-old Colt Gray in their Algebra I class when the unimaginable happened. Recalling the terrifying moments to CNN, Sayarath explained how Gray left the classroom, only to return minutes later, armed.
Gray knocked on the locked classroom door, trying to get back in. “Another student who approached the door saw that he had a gun, so she backed away,” Sayarath said. That’s when the horror began. “He turned to the classroom that would have been to my right, and he just starts to shoot, and you hear about 10-15 rounds back-to-back.”
Sayarath vividly remembers the chaos that followed as her classmates scrambled for safety. “When we heard it, most people just dropped to the floor and kind of crawled in an area, like, piled on top of each other,” she shared. The teacher acted quickly, turning off the lights, but fear gripped the room as students huddled together. Sayarath took charge, urging her classmates to block the door. “I pushed desks in front of us. I was just telling people, ‘Push desks in front of you, block in front of you, get low.’”
Gray, who was described by Sayarath as “quiet,” shocked many, but she said she wasn’t entirely surprised that he was the shooter. “He never really talked. He was pretty quiet. He wasn’t there most times either. He just didn’t come to school or would skip class,” she said. Even when Gray did speak, it was in short, one-word answers.
The devastating attack left four people dead—two 14-year-old students and two teachers. Nine others were injured in the massacre. Authorities quickly apprehended Gray, who survived the incident, and he is now expected to face murder charges and be tried as an adult.
The tragedy has left the Apalachee High School community in shock and mourning. But for Lyela Sayarath and her classmates, the memories of that terrifying morning will stay with them forever. As they piled behind desks in the dark, unsure of what would happen next, Sayarath’s quick thinking may have saved lives—her urgent calls to “push desks” and “get low” becoming a moment of leadership in the face of terror.
🚨#BREAKING: Footage/Pictures of the scene outside of Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia where the school shooting took place. pic.twitter.com/psCPvsCqaW
— World Source News 24/7 (@Worldsource24) September 4, 2024