By CHRISTIAN MONTERROSA | Reporter
When Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School went into lockdown because of an active shooter, Lorena Sanabria, 17, thought it was just a drill. She thought the gunshots she was hearing were simulations, and some of her classmates were convinced it was fake.
But Sanabria was not in a staged school shooting, she was in a real world nightmare, and 17 of her schoolmates were being shot to death just a few feet away.
Two months later, Sanabria visited the Archer School for Girls to tell her story and to shine a light on the stories of Parkland students who haven’t taken the national spotlight, but who equally struggle to cope with the traumatic event.
“It doesn’t get easier, sometimes I break down while telling the story, sometimes I keep myself together,” said Sanabria, who recalled in vivid detail how she hid in a closet with 10 other students for hours, waiting for the SWAT team to enter while listening to students desperately bang on the door, begging to be let in for shelter.
Having told her story many times, she is now working with a group of fellow survivors to spread the #StoriesUntold movement, a national social media campaign focused on telling stories of forgotten gun violence victims all around the world.
Hoping to inspire the students at Archer to take a stand against gun violence, Sanabria urged the soon to be voters to pre-register, continue to organize rallies, and keep the conversation going until military grade style weapons are taken off the market and mass shootings are no longer a common occurrence.
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