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Virginia Tech graduate John Woods glanced up from his speech on the East Mall Wednesday to look at his audience as he described what it was like to be on campus the day that 32 Hokies were massacred by a student gunman.
Woods, currently a graduate student at UT, gave his speech at a one-year anniversary memorial to remember the lives of all who were lost and affected by the Virginia Tech tragedy. His message touched on the sweeping influence shootings have on communities and ways to combat mental health stigma to encourage people to get help.
Woods was off campus the morning of the shooting. The phones were down, he said, so Facebook and instant messenger acted as the primary means of communication.
"I kept hitting refresh, refresh, refresh, hoping it was a dream, hoping it was a mistake," Woods said. He later found out that his girlfriend and several close friends were among the victims.
Student Government members passed out maroon and orange ribbons to approximately 30 people who gathered to listen, and SG president Keshav Rajagopalan started off the memorial with a speech calling for people to help each other to prevent similar tragedies.
A few of the listeners hung their heads and looked to the ground as Woods spouted out numbers - 32 people killed, 50 wounded, 200 bullets, 10 school shootings in the past 12 months. The common ingredient in the shootings is mental health, Woods said.
"If we could be more open about mental health issues, we could cease to stigmatize it and make it easier for people to ask for help," Woods said before recounting a tale of a student who asked for mental health counseling and was put at the bottom of a three-week waiting list. That scenario, he said, happened to the Virginia Tech shooter.
Jane Morgan Bost, associate director for UT's Counseling and Mental Health Center, said the University offers three different options for students with urgent needs. The Health Center has a crisis team available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. that guarantees students can be seen on the same day they arrive. UT sponsors a 24-hour telephone counseling service staffed by paid professionals open every day of the year. In August 2007, the Behavior Concerns Advice Line opened for students to call in with safety concerns.
This advice line received 126 calls in its first six months, said Student Emergency Services coordinator Latoya Hill, who supervises the hot line. From there, individuals are referred to the appropriate mental health resources on campus. It was this hot line that led to the arrest of a UT student carrying a gun on campus Tuesday morning.
UT graduate student and Virginia Tech alumnus David Gagnon said the best defense is the availability of mental health resources and that knowing this has allowed him to forgive the shooter.
"Someone has to be in a really serious state of despair to think shooting someone is the answer," Gagnon said. "While he's the perpetrator, he should not be an object of hate, because this is a broken world, and we have to rely on the help we can get."
The Behavioral Concerns Advice Line can be reached at (512) 232-5050, and the 24-hour crisis hot line can be reached any time at (512) 471-CALL.
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