Local family experienced horror of Va. Tech shootings

It’s the worst feeling a mother can have.

Early Monday morning last week, LeAnn Larsen turned on her computer and saw a report from MSN.com that Virginia Tech students had been gunned down.

Larsen immediately thought of her daughter.

“I had about three to four minutes of that panic that other parents had of just not knowing,” said Larsen, a lab admission clerk at St. Joseph Medical Center.

Larsen’s daughter, 26-year-old Erin Thomson, lives about a mile from the Virginia Tech campus. Typically, Thomson starts her day with a stroll through campus with her 7-month old baby boy, Beckham. But Monday, April 16 was incredibly windy, Thomson said, so she stayed inside her apartment. Before long she heard the sirens. Over the Virginia Tech emergency broadcast system, she was informed to stay inside and away from windows.

“I thought ‘Oh no, it’s another psycho with a gun,’” she said, referring to the August 2006 incident when an escaped jail inmate shot and killed a deputy sheriff and an unarmed security guard at a nearby hospital before being caught in the woods near the university.

Before long Thomson heard from her husband Jordan, a pre-med student at the Virginia Tech-affiliated Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine, that the whole school had been locked down because of a gunman who was on a killing spree. He made the call from his cell phone from his classroom.

Meanwhile, Larsen was at work trying desperately to get hold of her daughter. When she finally caught a break from her duties, she called her but was put through to her voice mail. She then dialed Jordan who was locked in a classroom. She was relieved to hear his voice.

“Your voice sounds so good,” she told him.

Jordan told his mother-in-law that he had just talked with her daughter and she was fine.

After hearing the news of the shootings, Thomson turned on her television and watched one of the local stations for continuous updates. She watched the death toll increase with each report. First, three were reported to have been killed, then 22. The final count was 33, including the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, who took his own life.

“It was just horrible,” said Thomson. “It was just a devastating number to hear.”

Thomson and her husband feared the worst when media reported the list of those killed. They had friends in Ambler Johnston hall, the co-ed dormitory that was the site of the first shootings where two were killed.

“We were just waiting anxiously,” said Thomson. “We were just hoping and praying that we didn’t have any friends that died.”

Fortunately, no one they knew was injured or slain, but that was only a silver lining.

“We were relieved, but it was no less shocking. Even though they weren’t direct friends, here are all these innocent lives taken right here in this town.

“We just started crying because these are real people,” she said.

Thomson has only lived in Blacksburg, Va. for 10 months.

“It’s a small town, but the university makes it what it is,” she said. “The university provides a real population for the town. Everything circulates around Virginia Tech.”

And when a tragedy of that magnitude strikes a small town, its impact is felt throughout the nation. Immediately following the news, Thomson received numerous phone calls from friends and family from all over the U.S.

Thomson was impressed with the way the community has reacted and pulled together for support in the aftermath of what is reported to be the largest massacre in U.S. history.

“Everyone is a Hokie,” she said referring to the university mascot. “Everyone is showing their support by wearing the school colors. Watching that has given me a new love for the town we live in. In a way, everyone lost 32 people that day.”