Apr 17, 2007 10:56 pm US/Mountain
Student From Colo. Skips Class, Misses Rampage
by Mike Hooker
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (CBS4) ―
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Jenna Stewart skipped class Monday during the massacre because she wasn't feeling well.
CBS
A Fort Collins family said their daughter could have been in the line of fire on the Virginia Tech campus during Monday's rampage by gunman Cho Seung-Hui, but the student wasn't feeling well and skipped class.
Jenna Stewart graduated from Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins four years ago and headed to Virginia Tech, the same university her mom and dad graduated from. She called home Monday in tears, her parents said.
"She was in tears, crying, frantic," Jenna's mother Becky Stewart said. "I said, 'What's going on? What happened?' She goes, 'I can't even describe what's happening right now, just turn on the TV.'"
On TV, there was pandemonium at Norris Hall where Jenna was supposed to have been in class, but she had stayed home.
"I think that that's what really rattled her was that she was supposed to have been on campus, in that building," Becky said.
As Becky watched in disbelief, she had the comfort of knowing her own daughter was safe.
"You have a sense of relief that maybe your child is okay," Becky said. "But how about everybody else's kid that is in that building and having to go through all that?"
Outside the Stewart's home Tuesday the U.S. flag was at half staff and a Virginia Tech flag was draped on the porch. Becky told CBS4 she is exhausted and barely slept Monday night as the images from Blacksburg played over and over in her head.
"You just can't get the thoughts out of your mind and the pictures of the day, and them carrying kids out of buildings and such," Becky said.
Like many people in Colorado, the massacre at her daughter's school gave her a terrifying flashback to Columbine.
"When Columbine happened in Colorado, everybody that lives in Colorado knows exactly where they were when that happened," Becky said. "And you just had that horrible sickening feeling in your stomach like, 'Not again, how this could happen to kids?' I don't get it."
The Stewart family is headed to Blacksburg in three weeks to watch Jenna graduate. What should have been a thrilling time is now overshadowed by violence.
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Slideshow: Deadly Rampage At Virginia Tech
Special Coverage: Massacre At Virginia Tech
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