It was a scene out of a warzone, but this time it was in Washington DC, in a building where WS parents and friends work.

When junior Gaby Fakhoury first heard that there was a shooting at the Navy Yard where her dad worked, she was sitting in her second period Personal Finance class.

“I looked at my friend and I was like ‘What the heck?!’” Fakhoury said.

She immediately texted her mom to find out what was going on, but her mom didn’t want to tell her anything that might make her worry. So she texted her dad, who replied to let her know that he was okay.

“It was very short, but he was very calm through the text,” Fakhoury said.

Her dad was in a boardroom by the cafeteria during the shooting, well within hearing range of the shots. Initially, he thought it was nothing serious, maybe a chair falling over. He even joked about it at first. But when more shots went off, he and the others in the room realized something more serious was going on.

“They stepped outside of the boardroom and into the cafeteria, and saw him as he was shooting,” Fakhoury said.

They immediately bunkered down in the boardroom and ultimately snuck out to safety. Other students had similar stories of parents in the area of the shooting. Junior Amir Sumrean’s dad was actually on the phone with his mom while the shooting was happening.

“He put the phone down, then she heard gun shots,” Sumrean said. “Then he yelled ‘There’s someone shooting, where the [freak] are the police?’”

Sumrean’s dad was in a meeting room on the second floor at the time, and he later led people down a staircase to safety. Just seconds after getting out, the gunman came into that same staircase.

But not everyone was so lucky.

When senior Morgan Akers first found out that there had been a shooting at the building where her best friend’s dad worked, she wasn’t concerned.

“I wasn’t… I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time,” Akers said.

It wasn’t until later that night, when her mom was on the phone with her friend, that she found out he wasn’t accounted for.

“We drove over to their house, and by the time we got there, we knew,” Akers said.

Martin Bodrog was one of the 13 people who died in the shooting. Akers said when she first found out the news, she was shocked.

“I was a mess. They’re like a second family to me. I’ve grown up with them my whole life. They’re probably the people I’m closest to,” Akers said.

Akers wasn’t able to see the family that night, but she visited them the next day. The house was full of people offering their support in the form of food, company and prayers. Akers spent most of the rest of the week at their house. Later, Obama visited with all the victim’s families, including the Bodrogs.

In the end, even those lucky enough to survive the attack came out deeply affected.

“[My dad] seemed kind of rattled,” Sumrean said. “Just… different.”