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Watson under lockdown during the VT shootings During the early morning hours Monday most news channels were focusing on the severe weather wreaking havoc on the northeast. That changed later in the morning when news reports began surfacing that a gunman had killed two Virginia Tech students in a co-ed dorm on campus in Blacksburg, Va. A couple of hours later the media turned their full coverage toward the Virginia Tech campus when a gunman entered a classroom building on campus and opened fire with two handguns. In less than 15 minutes the gunman had taken his own life, but not before gunning down almost 60 students and professors in the building, killing 32. Police identified the shooter Tuesday morning as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a senior from South Korea who was in the English department at Virginia Tech and lived in a different dorm on campus. There was no indication Tuesday of any possible motive. Early County High graduate, and former Bobcat football standout, Collier Watson, son of Jack and Ginger Watson, was on the Virginia Tech campus Monday morning during the shootings - the worst on campus massacre in U.S. history. "He was taking a final exam that morning from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.," stated Collier's mother, Ginger. "They were about a mile from where the shooting took place and were locked down in their building until 12 noon." Ginger said she was alerted to the news of the shooting by Brad Hughes. She switched to the news and tried to call Collier, leaving him a message. "He called back a short time later and let me know he was safe," she stated. Collier, a medical student studying orthopedic surgery, did not know any of the students killed or wounded in the shootings. Most of those killed were undergraduate engineering and English students. "When we finished our exam we were informed that we were under lockdown and couldn't leave the building," Collier told the News via telephone Tuesday. "We weren't given a lot of details.We had to watch the news unfold on our laptops.
Asked if he was hearing a blame aimed at the school officials for not handling the situation better, Collier stated, "Not really. Most of that is just being seen in the media."
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