Scary Situation

Well, this past Valentine’s Day is one I’ll never forget. We had a lock down situation at work.

The Barnes and Noble that I work at is in a mall and there was a shooting at the other end of the mall that caused the entire mall to go into lock down. It was definitely a scary situation. 

I was in the cookbook section, shelving books when all of a sudden I see customers being lead into our backroom upstairs. (We have two levels.) I immediately became concerned and quite frankly a little confused then I saw one of my managers and she motioned for me to join them. I saw that our door was now shut.

I saw some of my co-workers and walked over to them to see if they knew what was going on. Then I heard those words I’ll never forget. “There was a shooting in the mall.”

Talk about scary! My adrenaline started flowing and that plus the way too much intake of caffeine almost sent me into a panic attack. But I managed to calm down and as we were escorted downstairs into our much larger back room, I found some co-workers and settled in with them.

We later found out that a fight is what lead to the shooting and was isolated to the area by Nordstrom. There wasn’t a gunman wandering the mall. That definitely made me feel a little better.

I have to give a shout out to one of my managers, Lindsey, who handled the situation like a pro. She kept everything and everyone calm and kept us all updated on what was going on. If she was nervous, she definitely didn’t let it show!

4 people were arrested for the shooting, including one who had been shot.

I hope and pray I never have to face a situation like this again. God was definitely with us.