Student who survived Georgia shooting tells how he narrowly escaped the gunman

A sophomore at Apalachee High School changed his mind and refused to go to the bathroom shortly before shots were fired in the hallway – saying he would “probably be dead now” if he had left.

The shaken 10th-grader said he considered leaving class shortly before the suspected gunman, 14-year-old Colt Gray, opened fire at the northeast Georgia school on Wednesday morning, killing four people and wounding nine others.

“I was just about to go to the bathroom before it happened. And I’m so glad I didn’t, because otherwise I would probably be dead right now,” the 10th-grader told 11Alive, which did not give his name.

Just a few seconds later, the student heard gunshots nearby.

“I heard gunshots and then my teacher told us to go to the corner. I heard screaming and police saying, ‘Get down!'” he said of the horrific scene.

Although he was able to evacuate safely, he knew several people who had not escaped the shooting unscathed.

“I know my teacher. He was shot. I know a friend of one of my friends was shot in the leg,” the tenth-grader told the outlet.

The four victims were identified as teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14.

According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Gray turned himself in to officers at the scene and was taken into custody.

He is said to have used an AR-15 type weapon.

Authorities said Gray is expected to be charged with murder and tried as an adult.

He had previously been investigated by the FBI for alleged online threats of school shootings.

Gray’s father told investigators at the time that he had hunting weapons in the house – but insisted that his son did not have unsupervised access to them, the FBI statement said.