RICHMOND, Va. — Lori Haas vividly remembers getting a call from an EMT who passed the phone to her daughter 16 years ago.
“I got a phone call from Emily, and she said, ‘hi, mommy, I've been shot,’” Haas recalled.
Emily was 19 years old, sitting in French class at Virginia Tech’s Norris Hall when two bullets grazed her skull on April 16, 2007.
Emily survived — but 12 other people in her classroom were killed. A total of 32 people were shot and killed that day, 17 others were wounded, and six were injured jumping out of windows.
Lori and her husband jumped in their car and drove to Blacksburg from Short Pump as fast as they could.
“My husband was literally driving 90 miles an hour, I'm not exaggerating. Vehicle after vehicle after vehicle was passing us. Anybody related to public safety, from any walk of life, and from local and state and federal government was in route to Blacksburg. And it was just scary,” Haas said.
She remembers listening to the reporting on the radio as the death toll rose.
“Two are dead, then 10, and then 12 dead. I just remember sobbing and sobbing, and my husband said, ‘She's okay. She's okay.’ And I said 'I know. But there are too many families going to pick up dead children',” she explained.
16 years later, Emily is now married with kids of her own and teaches high school French just outside of Culpeper, Virginia.
“She went back to school and got her degree. Most of the injured students did in fact go back and get their degree, which took a great deal of courage. I don't think people think about the fact that they went back to the scene of their attempted murder,” Lori stated.
Lori Haas was a stay-at-home mother at the time, looking for her next journey in life. She has since channeled her experiences to advocate against gun violence.
Lori now serves as an advocacy manager with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and their Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
Firearms are the leading cause of death of children in Virginia and across the country, she said.
The Virginia Tech shooting is still the deadliest school shooting in modern American history. Lori can't help but notice that school shootings are still part of the everyday conversation.
“To talk about behavioral health and mental health, while necessary, and resources and funding are needed in those areas, we must do more about storing firearms safely and out of the reach of children,” Lori said.
