For Vail’s Josh Ball, the bloodbath at Virginia Tech represented horrifyingly close calls on Monday and numbing bewilderment on Tuesday.
Ball, a freshman at the school in Blacksburg, left his dormitory Monday morning just as paramedics were carrying out a student who had been shot, and he wrapped up his German class just a short time before the gunman, identified as Cho Seung- Hui, turned the classroom into a scene of unimaginable violence.
“I’m trying to put it in words and grasp it in my mind, but it’s like blank thoughts running through my head,” the 19-year- old said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “I’m just trying to realize what happened.”
Police say Cho began his rampage on the fourth floor at West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory, killing two people just before Ball left for a class. Ball said he didn’t realize the person rushed to an ambulance had been shot.
Not long after after Ball left his 8 a.m. German class, the shooter entered the same Norris Hall classroom, slaughtering dozens of students and instructors. In the two attacks, 33 people, including Cho, were killed.
“When I heard something about a German class getting hit, that was the biggest impact for me,” Ball said. “It’s hard for me to imagine, because just a little earlier, there was so much laughter in that room.”
Among the slain was Ball’s German instructor, Christopher James Bishop, a favorite of the Battle Mountain High graduate.
He said he did not recognize the gunman, a 23-year-old senior who committed suicide.
With classes canceled this week, Ball said he would visit relatives in Richmond, Va., and attend memorial services.
His father, Chris, said he thought it was important for his son to be among his friends to help him cope with the tragedy.
Ball called his father and mother, Mary, to reassure them as soon as he heard about the shootings while locked down in his midmorning class.
“It just brings to mind all those parents who lost a child,” Chris Ball said, “and their grief is unimaginable.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
