When an alarm went on for the second time on Wednesday afternoon, Shanthi Viswanathan shut the doors to her algebra classroom, made the students crouch on the floor and covered the windows, keeping them out of the reach and sight of the gunman, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
Florida (TIp): An Indian American math teacher, Shanthi Viswanathan is being appreciated for saving the lives of her students like a super woman during the shooting rampage at a Florida high school on February 14th that left 17 dead.
When an alarm went on for the second time on Wednesday afternoon, Shanthi Viswanathan shut the doors to her algebra classroom, made the students crouch on the floor and covered the windows, keeping them out of the reach and sight of the gunman, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
“She was quick on her feet. She used her knowledge. She saved a lot of kids,” Dawn Jarboe, the mother of one of Ms. Viswanathan’s students, told the newspaper.
When an elite police contingent known as a SWAT team came and knocked on the door asking her to open it, “Viswanathan took no chance that it wasn’t a trick by the gunman to get in” the newspaper said.
“She said, ‘knock it down or open it with a key. I’m not opening the door,'” Dawn Jarboe quoted her as telling the police.
“Some SWAT guy took out the window and cleared our room,” Dawn Jarboe’s son, Brian, texted his mother, the newspaper said.
A former student of the school, Nikolas Cruz, is in custody and being charged for the hideous crime.