During the massacre in Virginia Tech, one lucky teacher and her students survived the gunman's attack by blocking the entrance to their classroom. Cheng Haiyan, a teaching assistant at Virginia Tech, garnered national attention for her harrowing experience. She described her terrifying experience to Southern Metropolitan News.Net in a telephone interview.
Cheng says she would like to delete the day of April 16, 2007 from her calendar. She calls it a painful and nerve-wracking day. The pain came later, she says, but the tension was there from the moment the shooting began and has stayed with her to this day.
Just a Normal Day For Cheng Haiyan
It was a cold day in Blackburg when, at 8:50 a.m., Cheng went to her office in Torgerson Hall on the Virginia Tech campus to check her email. She left her cell phone there to recharge and went to find the lecture room in Norris Hall.
Not sure of the room number, Cheng went to the second floor of Norris Hall to get directions. It was room 205. When she passed by room 204, she noticed a white-haired professor taking his materials out of his briefcase; there were around 20 students sitting in the classroom. Cheng has since learned that this was Romanian Professor Liviu Librescu, who gave his life to save his students, using his body to block the murderer's bullets.
At 9 a.m., Cheng went into the classroom and just as per usual, all 10 students arrived. Cheng was the substituting teacher for the class of Issues in Scientific Computing. The first 45 minutes of the one-hour class were completely normal as she discussed the topic of "numerical solutions for ODE"
Unexplained Explosions Interrupt Cheng Haiyan's Lessons
Suddenly, at 9:45, "Bang, bang," Cheng Haiyan heard loud explosions outside of the classroom. The sounds were sharp and loud and came from somewhere very close by. Cheng's first thought was that something had broken. There was no other noise. After five or 10 seconds, just as she was going to introduce the next topic for discussion, "stability analysis," the loud bangs repeated.
Cheng and Theresa (a student sitting close to the door,) went out into the hall to see what the noise was. The noise was coming from room 208, was across the hall and to the left of room 205.
The door of room 208 was closed. Cheng stared at it for two seconds. Then the door burst open. First she saw the gun, black and shiny; then a man walked out of the room, the gun in his hand. Cheng and Theresa immediately spun around and fled. Even though she only faced the gunman for one second, Cheng saw his black outfit and his Asian features clearly.
Cheng and Theresa ran back to 205. Before they shut the door, they heard a painfully loud blast, and a bullet whistled past their ears. Concurrently, Cheng heard the massive gunshots in the hallway. Later, Cheng was told that there were other people running in the hallway. Those others had distracted the gunman and bought them the precious time they needed to escape.
An Improvised Barricade Saves Cheng Haiyan and her Students
Back inside room 205, an Indian student suggested barricading the entrance to their classroom. Three American students helped to move a big table next to the podium. Before they could put more heavy stuff on the table, the gunman arrived. At first he tried to open the door, but the four students inside pushed back hard. Then, the gunman began shooting at the door.
Cheng remembered four bullets coming through the door. Wood chips and chunks of metal were flying everywhere. One bullet came through the door and hit the podium behind which Cheng was huddled with another female student. Other girls tried to hide at the back of the classroom. Four male students were lying on the floor next to the door with their hands still tightly holding the table legs. Two students hiding under the desk at the back of the classroom were calling 911 with their cell phones to report the situation to the police.
The gunman could not make it through their door. Instead he gave up and resumed his shooting in other places down the hallway. For a while the gunshots continued, "bang, bang, bang," and suddenly, the gunshots stopped. They could hear that he was reloading the gun. It was horrifying. Luckily for Cheng and her students, the gunshots went farther and farther away. The gunman moved down the hall towards room 207.
It seemed like an eternity before they heard the police siren. At 10:15, a policeman came in and asked them to line up, to leave aside all personal belongings and follow him to safety. The police then announced loudly that they everybody safe and that they had survived this intense ordeal.
As Cheng ran to safety she saw the scattered bullet clips and cartridge cases littering the floor outside of the classroom. There were people lying on the bloodied floor.
Once she had safely arrived inside Randolph Hall, Cheng borrowed a laptop and emailed her husband and her research group to say that she was safe.
On April 18, President Bush and many State officials attended the Virginia Tech memorial service. Many people were crying, and a banner with "4.16.07" was hung on top of the Virginia Tech Student Union Building. It was a day that no one would ever forget.
Cheng Haiyan's Biography
Cheng Haiyan is a native of Inner Mongolia. She is a 1994 graduate of the University of Inner Mongolia. In 1998 she earned her Master's degree in Applied Mathematics from Michigan Technological University, and in 2004 a second Master's degree in Computer Science from University of Windsor, Canada. Currently, she is studying for her Ph.D. student and a working teaching assistant in the Computer Science Department of Virginia Tech.
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