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VT Wounded Student Blocks Door To Shooter

April 17, 2007

By Bill McKelway, Media General News Service

BLACKSBURG —The shooting reels through Derek O'dell's mind silently in slow motion.

"It was like there was no sound," O'Dell said yesterday, describing the events when Cho Seung-Hui came through his third-floor Norris Hall classroom door and opened fire early Monday morning.
"He never said a word," the 20-year-old biology major said. But there was no question O'Dell and some 20 other classmates in the German class were in terrible danger.

"There was an anger in his eyes. He was very angry and absolutely determined to kill."

O'Dell, who is from Roanoke County, watched the first two shots take out his teacher and a student on the front row.

And the gunman, dressed in a black coat and ammo vest, moved across the room in a way that forced the scrambling, bleeding mass of students toward a rear, exitless corner.

O'Dell dived for the floor, seeking cover behind his desk, a move that saved his life.

Some of the shots were from as close as 2 feet, and many tore into the heads of his friends, O'Dell said.

He said the shock of the day is beginning to bear down on him; he breaks into tears sometimes, and when a reporter asked if he will attend any of the funerals of the Virginia Tech dead, he went pale and said he's not sure.

He said Cho was anything but meek-looking. "He looked like a terrorist."

And when he re-loaded a clip into his weapon, "he knew exactly what he was doing. It didn't take more than two seconds."

The shooting stopped as suddenly as it began. Cho left the room.

"There were maybe four of us coherent enough to do anything," O'Dell said.

The four ran to the door, holding it closed against Cho's effort to push his way back into the room, apparently to kill off survivors.

Cho fired several rounds into the door; O'Dell remembers the way the wood splintered as the rounds stopped short, imbedded in the door.

There were about 15 dead in the room, one of four that Cho entered, O'Dell said police told him.

Students on the floor below jumped from windows they pried open.

It was only at the end of it all that O'Dell ealized he'd been shot in the right arm.

The wound — the bullet went in and came out — is healing, and O'Dell said he is determined to return to classes next week.

"Don't call me a hero. I'm no hero," he said. "The heroes are the ones who died."

Contact staff writer Bill McKelway at bmckelway@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6601.