SPU student: I 'put the second victim's head on my lap to ease her comfort'

SPU student Chris Howard tells of seeing two of the wounded students in the shooting Thursday. (Photo: KCPQ-TV)



SEATTLE -- Seattle Pacific University engineering student Chris Howard said he first learned of the school shooting when he was in the machine shop Thursday and a friend came "running in from the outside with two marks on his neck that were bleeding a little too much."

He said the machine shop was so loud when the shots were fired. "I didn't hear the shots myself," he said.

“The first thing that I saw was my friend running in from the outside with two marks on his neck that were bleeding a little too much. When he ran in, my friend’s first instinct was to tell us to close the door behind him and inquired, basically, about the security of the room, if the other entrances to the machine shop were closed."



Howard said students began locking the doors to the room and ripped open a First Aid kit to work on the student's bleeding neck.

After that, he said, "I left the machine shop to find someone EMT certified. When I left the machine shop, there was a senior kneeling next to an individual prone to the ground in the hallway," he said. "That's pretty suspicious. So I went over, I was called over, and I was instructed to put the second victim's head on my lap to ease her comfort."

Howard said he had never seen the wounded female before, but assumed she was a student.

Asked if he thought the shooter was a student, Howard said, "I highly doubt that. The shooter looked too old and personally I'd never seen him before."

Howard said all he wanted to do was go home and sleep.