One of the two students who was shot has been released from the hospital while the other victim remains in critical condition.
DENVER — A student shot two of his peers Wednesday at a suburban Denver high school before shooting himself and later dying, authorities said.
The incident involving a handgun shooting occurred around 12:30 p.m. at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado, situated roughly 30 miles west of Denver in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Shots were exchanged both inside and outside the school’s premises, and law enforcement officers located the shooter within five minutes of their arrival, as per Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Jacki Kelley.
None of the law enforcement officers who responded to the shooting fired any shots, Kelley said.
According to a statement released through the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, one of the victims is 18-year-old Matthew Silverstone.
On Thursday morning, authorities confirmed that both victims were still in the hospital. Initially, they were taken to St. Anthony’s Hospital, but one has since been transferred to Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora. One victim is in critical condition, while the other’s injuries are considered non-life-threatening.
Kelley mentioned that over 100 police officers from surrounding areas raced to the school to provide assistance. The reference to a 1999 school shooting at Jefferson County’s Columbine High, where 14 people were killed, including a woman who succumbed earlier this year due to complications from her injuries, underscores the gravity of the situation.
The teens were originally listed in critical condition, St. Anthony Hospital CEO Kevin Cullinan said. Their ages were not released.
By early evening, one teenager was reported to be in stable condition with injuries deemed non-life-threatening by Dr. Brian Blackwood, the hospital’s trauma director.
The high school, which enrolls more than 900 students, is largely encircled by forest and is approximately a mile from the center of Evergreen, a community with a population of 9,300.
After the shooting, parents gathered outside a nearby elementary school waiting to reunite with their children.
Wendy Nueman said her 15-year-old daughter, a sophomore at Evergreen High School, didn’t answer her phone right away after the shooting, The Denver Post reported. When her daughter finally called back, it was from a borrowed phone.
“She just said she was OK. She couldn’t hardly speak,” Nueman said, holding back tears. She gathered that her daughter ran from the school.
“It’s super scary,” she said. “We feel like we live in a little bubble here. Obviously, no one is immune.”
Eighteen students who fled from the shooting took shelter at a home just down the road, after an initial group of them pounded on the door asking for help, resident Don Cygan told Denver’s KUSA-TV. One student said he heard gunshots while in the school’s cafeteria and ran out of the school, Cygan said.
Cygan, a retired educator familiar with lockdown trainings to prepare for possible shootings, said he took down the names of all the students and the names of the parents who later arrived there to pick them up. His wife, a retired nurse, was able to calm the teens down and treat them for shock, he said.
“I hope they feel like they ran to the right house,” he said.
Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
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