Sandy Hook survivors share their memories and future plans before high school graduation

Twelve years ago, the lives of first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School were forever changed when a gunman opened fire, killing 20 of their classmates and six of their teachers and administrators.

This week, young students who survived the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, one of the deadliest school shootings in American history, will graduate from high school. George Stephanopoulos, co-anchor of “Good Morning America,” spoke with six of the students.

Henry Terifay was 7 years old when he fled his class after hearing gunshots.

When he takes the stage to receive his high school diploma, he will have with him a constant memory of what happened in his classroom on December 14, 2012.

“I have my friend's name tattooed on my shoulder so he stays with me every day,” Terifay, now 18, told Stephanopoulos, adding of all his classmates who were killed: “I just try to remember it every day.”

Emma Ehrens, now 17, was 6 and reading a book with her classmates when the shooter, a 20-year-old who had decided to kill himself, entered her classroom.

“I remember being at the front of the class, and he came in and stood right next to me. And I saw all my friends fall,” Ehrens said. “One of the victims [who] didn't succeed, he told me and a few other people to run away, and we did. We ran out of the classroom, out of the school, and on the way we saw bodies in the hallways and doors ripped off the hinges. And we just ran and ran and ran, out of the school, out of the parking lot.”

For another graduate, Matt Holden, his memory of Dec. 14, when he was 6, centers on seeing his mother cry in a way she never has before or since.

“Once we finally got out of the school, I remember we were walking to the fire station and my mom ran up to me crying, and I didn't know what happened at that moment- there,” he said. “I didn't understand the seriousness of it all, but I knew that if my mother cried, she was so afraid that, you know, something horrible had happened. I had never seen her like that before and I I have never done it since. I hope I never will.

Ella Seaver, who was 7 at the time of the shooting, said that even as she prepares to graduate high school and start a new chapter, it remains difficult to talk about what happened in her first grade class year all those years ago.

“It's still, even more than 10 years later, very difficult to try to dig up those memories because of how traumatic and painful it is,” Seaver said, adding that it brings comfort to share memories with other survivors. “For me personally, when I talk to these five other people, it's comforting in a way, because you have this connection that will never go away.”

Seaver said her experience as a Sandy Hook survivor helped her decide what career she planned to pursue after college.

“I knew I wanted to become a therapist since I was eight years old, which was really only a year after the shooting,” Seaver said. “I've been in and out of therapy most of my life, especially after the shooting, and it's really helped me cope and helped me know myself better, so I want to try to pay it forward and help those people who have experienced gun violence, or even people who haven't, who are just struggling in their daily lives.

Others said they planned to pursue careers in politics and law.

Since the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, more than 1,600 school shootings have occurred in the United States, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database, an independent, nonpartisan research project.

“I really thought Sandy Hook was going to shock people and wake everyone up,” Terifay said, adding that he was tired of hearing “I’m sorry” from people without any action. “But it keeps happening over and over again.”

Holden said more than a decade after a school shooting devastated his elementary school, things can seem “hopeless” as the number of school shootings continues to rise.

“The tragedy never ends,” Holden said. “The friends, the family who disappeared that day, the smiling faces who should fill the seats in your classroom, the parents who should be able to see their children graduate, get married, the children will never be able to hug their parents again . It's never over.

Lilly Wasilnak, who was 6 at the time of the shooting, said the increase in school shootings since Sandy Hook made her worry for the safety of her own future children.

“As unfortunate as it is, it's going to happen to someone else, and it's going to continue to happen to someone else until people like us are forced to make the change,” he said. said Wasilnak, now 17 years old. “We worry about the day when we'll have kids and I don't want to send my kids to school like our world does.”

On June 7, Wasilnak joined five of his fellow Sandy Hook survivors to travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris on National Gun Violence Prevention Day.

A few months earlier, in December, Wasilnak, Ehrens and a classmate, Grace Fischer, also traveled to Washington to meet with lawmakers and attend the 10th annual national vigil for all victims of gun violence.

“When I went there, it really opened my eyes,” Fischer said. “We sat down with senators and representatives and their staff, and this opportunity to be able to go to Congress and talk to these people in such high positions of power… really made me want to fight for something that I want to change.

Congress' last major action on gun laws, the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, took place in June 2022, nearly a month after the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas , which killed 19 students and two teachers.

Seaver said if she could see one change in gun reform, it would be to establish “regulations on AR-style assault weapons.”

“I think one of the hardest things is getting people to agree,” Seaver said. “And I think it puts an end to a lot of regulations and legislation, which unfortunately costs more and more lives every day.”