Here's my story - My ID badge had fallen off in the car yesterday morning, so before I heading out to lunch I went to get my badge in my car. I had my keys with me and $12 in my pocket; my purse is currently still sitting under my desk. When I was going from the parking garage elevators I quickly decided to go see Greydon in the Discovery Kids Place daycare on the 1st floor, which I rarely do because it upsets him when I leave. He did not eat his food on Tuesday, so I thought it best if I check on him.
I played with the Greydon and his friend, Dexter, for about 5 minutes when a daycare administrator ran in the room and said there was a gunman in the building and we were to move all the children away from the front of their classrooms. The daycare is locked at all times, but we weren't sure if the gunman had accessed the internal areas in the building which was past the building's front security desk.
Greydon's teacher and I moved him and his two classmates to the back corner of the room. 5 minutes later we were told we were evacuating the building. We didn't know exactly how long we were going to be away, so we grabbed food and diapers. There was lots of chaos as to where we were going and how we were going to get out. Some teachers and parents were crying and shaking. I told a small group of them that it was our jobs to get the children out of the building safely and we needed to focus only on this task. Put all cell phones away and stop texting.
It was pretty real when we left the security of the daycare, went out in the hall and got on the elevator when a SWAT guy came around the corner about 10 feet away from us. That's when it hit me about the severity of the situation. The officer seemed huge and the gun he was gripping seemed too big to be real.
We made our way out of the building, babies in our arms and in cribs. Wheeling the children in the cribs is the fastest way to remove multiples out of the building in an emergency situation. It can be quite jarring to see if you've not seen 3 babies in a crib being wheeled down the street. It definitely conjures up images of Eastern European orphanages we've all seen in the past.
So here we are in the Fox News video. I'm in the bright pink looking a bit frazzled.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/daycare-center-evacuated-amid-hostage-situation-090110
On a heroic note, as we were wheeling the first wave of children out of the building about 10 men, one being a guy in my department, were rushing back in to help with the daycare evacuation. I pointed them in the direction of where the next group of children were to exit the elevators.
If I had not gone to see Greydon, I probably would have been in the front lobby at the time Lee was there. I had planned to exit our building through the front lobby at that exact time. In fact, my co-worker, Norma, tried to re-enter the building after returning from lunch and was met by James Lee who put the gun in her face and told her to leave.
Fletcher had left for Detroit yesterday morning and was contacted by his co-workers about the ordeal. He tried calling me, but I did not have my cell phone with me since I left it under my desk. I borrowed a co-workers cell phone and called his work to let them know I was ok. They patched me through to Fletcher's cell. He rescheduled his flight and came home last night. (Thank you, Hon.)
How I got home - I took the Metro from Silver Spring to Shady Grove where I then took a Ride-On bus to Damascus. We walked home almost a mile in the heat with Greydon in my arms.
What a day! Our car is still at Discovery in the garage. The building is open for a few hours today, so we need to go get it.
Needless to say Discovery is closed until Tuesday. Nice kick off to the holiday weekend!
