April 20, 1999 was a sunny day in the quiet suburb of Littleton, Colorado. It was three days after prom, and the students at Columbine High School were shaking off the revelry and eager to wind down their last few weeks of school before summer.
But two students, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had different plans. That day they put into motion, what would be, at the time - one of the worst massacres in the U.S. that left 12 students and one teacher dead, and 21 wounded.
Twenty years on, the survivors, many of them now in their 30s with children of their own, have become a force for healing and a symbol of the indomitable human spirit. Former Principal Frank DeAngelis, who was head of the school from 1996 to 2014, has penned a recent memoir, 'They Call Me Mr. De,' about his experience from the minute unspeakable tragedy ripped through the lives of his students and staff to his long process of recovery.
For the last two decades without fail, Frank DeAngelis wakes up every morning and recites the names of his '13 beloved.' The 12 students and one teacher that were killed in the Columbine High School mass shooting: Rachel Scott, Isaiah Schoels, Cassie Bernall, Matt Kechter, Kyle Velasquez, Steven Curnow, Corey DePooter, Kelly Flemming, Daniel Mauser, Lauren Townsend, Danny Rohrbough, John Tomlin and Coach Dave Sanders.
'It never goes back to normal,' DeAngelis told to DailyMail.com. 'We had to redefine what normal is.'
Columbine High School students waited in a residential area adjacent to the school for their fellow students and friends to escape the gunman. Laura Faber (not pictured) was a freshman at the time remembers knocking on neighborhood doors looking for shelter while her and 20 other classmates waited for their parents
Columbine high school students run to the safety of buses after being rescued by SWAT teams from inside the high school
A mother is reunited with her daughter in the frantic aftermath of the shooting. Rachel Scott's family waited two days before they officially got the news that their daughter had died. After miraculously surviving the library bloodshed, 16-year-old Craig Scott remembers calling his parents: 'Mom, I'm OK, but I think there's something wrong with Rachel'
Patrick Ireland became known as the 'boy in the window' as millions of Americans watched him make a desperate attempt to save his own life by jumping out of a window that had been shattered in gunfire. Ireland was shot twice in the head, causing the right side of his body to be paralyzed. He had to re-learn how to eat, walk and talk, eventually graduating from Columbine as the valedictorian
The rampage lasted 45 minutes, but the physical and emotional scars it left behind on survivors and family members of the victims is permanent. On the 20 year anniversary, DeAngelis wants to celebrate the lives of those lost and lessons they learned through the painful healing process that he said, 'never ends.'
At the time of the shooting, DeAngelis was 43-years-old and in his third year as the principal of the school when his life was changed forever. 'My worst nightmare had become a reality,' he wrote in his book. 'If you would have told me 20 years ago that Columbine could happen at Columbine, I would have said no,' he said.
The carnage started just after 11:20am when DeAngelis' secretary barged into his office with reports of gunfire outside the cafeteria. 'I was in disbelief, the first thing that crossed my mind is that this has to be a senior prank, that this couldn't be happening at Columbine High School because I can count on two hands the number of fist fights we had in all my years,' he said.
Kiki Leyba, a first year teacher at the time is quoted in DeAngelis' book: 'We all recognized, as the days turned into weeks and months, that he was burning it at both ends. (Post-traumatic stress disorder) sets in pretty fast, and I could see it happening to him.'
Looking back on that time DeAngelis said that he was in a state of shock for the first year. 'Being the principal of that high school I really felt the weight of the world on my shoulders.' He was running on adrenaline and sleeping only three hours a night. 'The students were my number one priority, and then I was still trying to run the school with 150 staff members. I had the community, I had the parents and I was working with the 13 families that lost their loved ones. It was a monumental task for me,' he said.
For the last 20 years, Frank DeAngelis wakes up every morning to recite the names of his 'beloved 13.' He said 'I let them down. Something that I have to live with is 13 people died on my watch'
A woman looks at crosses posted on a hill above Columbine High School in remembrance of the people who died during a shooting rampage at the school. Every year, Columbine celebrates the lives of victims by doing a 'day of service' where students volunteer throughout the community
Craig Scott was in the library when he heard the first shot that killed his sister. Minutes later the shooters murdered his two friends that he was wedged between while hiding under a table in the library. He said that Rachel was friendly to everyone and led with compassion and mercy. That year she had gone to prom (right) with one of Dylan Klebold's friends. 'She was absolutely the wrong person to go after.' Years later Craig was able to find forgiveness for the killers and travels the country with his organization 'Value-Up'
Mourners pray at a mound of flowers left at the perimeter of the Columbine High School the day after the shooting. Security remained tight around the the campus while police searched for explosives that Klebold and Harris used to booby-trap the campus and grounds
All this came at the expense of his health and family when three years later it suddenly hit him 'a ton of bricks.' During this time, DeAngelis' 17-year marriage ended in divorce; his wife said that he was not the same man she married. He admits that he wasn't very present with his family during that time and regrets not insisting that they also seek therapy for the trauma as well. This is one of the many pieces of advice he gives to people who have gone through the same harrowing experience.
The aftermath of Columbine also affected Leyba in a similar way. 'I closed off from family and friends and drew nearer to other people who had been through the experience because they could relate to it and it felt easier to be around them than people who hadn't,' he told DailyMail.com.
The two educators have devoted themselves to helping other survivors that suffered similar circumstances, from Sandy Hook to Virginia Tech and Platte Canyon High School. 'It's a club that nobody wants to be a part of,' said DeAngelis. Along with skills on how to cope, his advice is to always take things 'one moment at a time,' something he learned all too well in long rebuilding process after Columbine.
In 2010, unfathomable misfortune struck Kiki Leyba's life again when gunfire erupted at his son's middle school. He was within feet of the perpetrator but survived. 'Here I was again, swirling in trauma, but this time as a parent. I couldn't believe it was happening again,' he said.
Memory becomes distorted in harrowing events. 'I went through something known as fight, flight or freeze.' There are certain things from that day that DeAngelis blocked out, like the ear splitting blare of fire alarms. He remembers time happening in slow motion, his scope narrowed to tunnel vision pierced by strobe lights and the sound of glass shattering behind him as Eric Harris fired shots in his direction.
Many survivors of Columbine still suffer from various forms of post-traumatic stress disorder. While waiting for SWAT teams to arrive, students had to endure the mind-boggling shrill of fire alarms that are intended to flush people out rooms in the event of a fire. Students were forced to sustain the deafening ring, layered over bomb explosions and gunfire for three torturous hours while trapped in classrooms. Laura Faber, a freshman at the time told DailyMail.com: 'Sounds can still be very triggering. I don't even remember hearing anything that day, but now I cringe and, you know, get goose bumps.'
The school installed a balloon arch in a well-meaning effort to welcome students back to the school after the tragedy. When balloons popped, students instantly dropped to the ground for cover. They had to change the ring of the fire alarm bells and to this day, Chinese food is still banned in the cafeteria because it was the last meal served on that day. All these measures were taken to not trigger panic for survivors.
A view through a back door into the Columbine High School library shows some of the damage from the April 20th shootings. Klebold and Harris turned their high school into a war zone. Bullets ricocheted off walls and shattered windows. Exploded pipe- bombs destroyed furniture, caused the walls to rattle and detonated the sprinkler and fire alarm systems that made it rescue immensely difficult for SWAT teams
The Jefferson County police department and SWAT ream rescue units were critiqued for doing too little too late. It took the SWAT teams almost four hours to secure the building, by then Klebold and Harris had been dead from self-inflicted gunshots for more than three hours. Since Columbine, protocols in handling school shootings have changed drastically
CCTV footage shows Eric Harris (left) and Dylan Klebold (right) on tape during their shooting spree. Witness accounts said the killers were laughing and having fun. A police report revealed that when student John Savage asked Dyland Klebold what they were doing, he chillingly replied: 'Oh, just killing people'
Evidence collected from the massacre included two 12 gauge shotguns, one of which was sawed off. Two semi-automatic pistols and 99 improvised explosive devices. They had paid for these weapons with money they earned working part time at a local Pizza joint and purchased them illegally through Dyland Klebold's prom date who was of legal age to buy guns at the time. She told investigators they thought they were going to use them for target practice
Leyba was sitting with DeAngelis in his office when they learned about the gunfire. Leyba sprinted into the hallway where students were casually milling around because they didn't register the sounds as gunshots, they had no context for it. 'I began to yell at kids to 'get out, get out!' and still I got so many blank stares,' Leyba told DailyMail.com.
Running toward the commons area, DeAngelis found a group of 25 girls leaving the locker room and heading straight toward the crossfire. He herded them toward the main gym for refuge from the hail of bullets, desperately fumbling through his pocket to find his keys. All the doors on campus had automatically been secured while the school descended into 'lockdown' mode. His massive ring held 35 different keys that all looked the same, but an act of divine intervention allowed DeAngelis to select the right one on his first attempt. 'A lot of things happened that day that I couldn't explain, and that was one of them,' he wrote in his book.
Eric Harris was coming after DeAngelis but stopped to turn his attention toward Dave Sanders, who was shepherding students out of the cafeteria and into safety when he was shot three times: in the back, neck and torso. Sanders, a computer and business teacher at Columbine for 25 years was beloved by the students. 'One of the most difficult things for me has been the guilt of knowing that if Dave would have stayed in the faculty lounge, I likely would have been a victim,' DeAngelis said in his book.
Sanders fell to the ground and began crawling on his elbows to direct kids out of harm's way. Another teacher, Rich Long propped Sanders up onto his shoulder and brought him into Science Classroom 3 where junior Aaron Hancey, an Eagle Scout, began to perform first aid. He took off his own shirt to apply pressure to the gaping wounds and tore up strips of other shirts to create
