SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — After learning about the deadly shooting at Saugus High School on Thursday morning, parents rushed to the Santa Clarita campus as fast as they could.
Students said they started hearing shots just as classes were about to start at 7:50 a.m. One mother said she got a text from her daughter while getting ready to go to work.
“My daughter Sara told me, ‘Mom, I’m so scared. I love you guys so much. Please come, please come,'” she told KTLA. “And that just killed me.”
She said that’s when she got in her car, then drove and parked near the campus.
“I ran to the school, and I waited and waited,” the mother said.” “She was the first one to get out.”
Another mother held her daughter Riley as she spoke about the other students still in classrooms nearly two hours after news of the shooting surfaced.
“They’re texting us that they’re hiding in closets, they’re scared to die,” she said.
Adam, a junior at Saugus High School, was also with his mom after the incident.
“I heard a bunch of sirens, he called me, I said come right home,” his mother said. “It’s nerve wracking. It’s horrible. I feel so bad for all the parents who haven’t heard from their kids. I was lucky. And there’s a lot of parents who haven’t heard from their kids at all.”
She said that she also has a 13-year-old daughter at Arroyo Seco Junior High. Her daughter called her to say that her school also went on lockdown.
“She’s scared. She’s 13. She doesn’t know what’s going on,” the mother said.
She said she’s glad that her kids learned what they needed to do from lockdown drills.
“It’s really sad that they have to do that, but it does prepare them,” she said.