ANTIOCH, Tenn. (WTVF) — After gunshots rang out inside the Antioch High School, the following hours families flocked to the Ascension Saint Thomas Medical pavilion to wait for school buses.
It wasn’t just parents who convened at the parent unification site, siblings did as well.
“It just happened just boom boom, boom, boom, boom,” said Caiden Taylor.
Taylor is an Antioch High School senior who was inside the school when shots were fired.
He described what it was like trying to run to safety and getting trampled in the midst of the chaos.
“There was a crowd of people are getting trampled over. I got trampled over getting out of there,” said Taylor. “Only thing was to go out to my car. Wait for my brother.”
Families were told to go to the reunification site to wait for school buses.
School buses that would bring students from the scene of a deadly shooting inside their school cafeteria, to their loved ones and safety.
Waiting alongside his family on the hillside, Taylor tried to process the steps he took to survive inside his own school.
Anger sometimes winning over.
“I’m upset people lost their lives, especially for the person who got shot. It shouldn’t happen. To not go home, and more parents are upset,” said Taylor. “Just for all this to happen. I think it’s selfish very selfish.”
Feet away, Tiffany Brooks waited for her granddaughter.
She told me what it was like to get a call from her granddaughter in the middle of the school day.
“She just called and said ‘mama T they’re shooting’,” said Brooks.
Traversing chaotic traffic, Tiffany abandoned her car on the side of the road on Murfreesboro Pike, which meant walking across traffic to the unification site.
She hoped to see her and hold her granddaughter.
However, Tiffany rushed over to wait some more.
“Just want to see her just need to see her. I need to know she’s in one piece, that’s all I need to do now,” said Tiffany.
The matriarch of this family held back tears as she knew she would hold her granddaughter again.
But the hours she waited on the hill, she knew she needed to stay strong for those who love and depend on her.
“Other parents they’re not gonna be able to do that,” said Tiffany.
“Tonight, when it’s all over with I’ll lay in the bed and I’ll cry because I can’t cry right now. I have to make sure everyone’s good.”
Tiffany was able to reunite with her granddaughter and Caiden with his brother.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at amanda.roberts@newschannel5.com.
