Shoes saved Aussie's life from US gunman
An Australian student caught up in the Virginia Tech University massacre believes a misplaced pair of shoes saved her from walking straight into the path of the gunman who killed 32 people.
Alana Fragar had the front door open and her coat on, but stopped to look for her shoes before heading off on the short walk to morning classes at the university in Blacksburg, Virginia.
While looking for the shoes, she received an email alert warning students a gunman was loose on campus and to stay inside.
"[I'm] so lucky. If so many things had not happened ... I didn't have my computer working until this week. I would have just walked straight into it without knowing anything," Ms Fragar told Fairfax.
"If I had have found my shoes straight away, I would have not got the email. It's just crazy."
The second-year psychology student from Sydney lives in a flat 500 metres from Norris Hall, where 30 people were shot and where she presumes at least one friend was killed and another, Clay Violand, pretended to be dead as dying classmates fell on top of him.
"I was the only one who wasn't shot," Mr Violand told Ms Fragar in a graphic email exchange.
"I watched my f***ing classmates get mauled in front of me and I was the only one who wasn't shot. I feel crazy. People died on top of me.
"I just pretended to be dead and people got shot in the face. I was so scared. I love you."
Ms Fragar said Mr Violand was struggling to cope with the fact he escaped death while he saw his classmates killed.
"The gunman was walking in and not saying anything at all, just opening fire and killing whoever he could and then leaving again," she told ABC Radio.
Ms Fragar's parents live in Washington DC while her sister Michelle, who is currently there on holiday, was planning to drive to Virginia to comfort her on Wednesday after being held back by storms on Tuesday.
Among around 10 Australians at Virginia Tech, Australian Under 21s basketball representative Eleanor Brentnall, 19, from Melbourne, was in the dormitory opposite the building where the gunman's first two victims were shot at around 7.15am, two hours before the Norris Hall rampage.
But Ms Brentnall, who is on a sporting scholarship at Virginia Tech, was one of many students who went to class after the first shooting, believing they were safe.
"I was on the phone with her through the night," said her mother Anne Welfare in a release issued by Basketball Australia.
"She is resilient, but she's totally distressed at the unnecessary loss of life.
"She's in shock to some extent; there's just so much grief.
"Eleanor said that the police were yelling and people were running for their lives."
Australian research engineer Christopher Hull said he heard several bursts of rapid gunfire from his office adjoining Norris Hall.
"About 10 o'clock I heard a number of gunshots, probably 15, 20 and then all of a sudden students came running out of the building," Mr Hull told ABC Radio.
"Some appeared hurt and then there were more shots and very soon after that heavily-armed police turned up.
"There were more gunshots and then injured people were being brought out and taken away in ambulances."
Staff were told to stay in their offices, to lock their doors, turn out the lights and stay away from the windows, he said.
"I felt nervous, but I think we felt a lot worse when we found out how many people were killed," he said.
But Mr Hull said he would return to work on Wednesday.
"I think it will be good to go back there and talk amongst ourselves and share it amongst ourselves," he said.
Queensland student Lesley Garard said she stayed in her dormitory after also receiving the email.
"It's absolutely horrible, absolutely horrible. I'm sure the next couple of days are going to be overwhelming," she told the Nine Network.
"It really hit close to home, made me think it may have been me."
She said she had always felt comfortable in Blacksburg.
"I feel safer walking around the streets of Blacksburg at night than Gympie or Brisbane," she said.
"I'm really looking forward to coming back home now more than ever."
But she said the tragedy would not stop her completing her communications degree.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra said it had not received any calls from relatives unable to contact family members
