Tragedy at Virginia Tech

After the shootings, Virginia Tech senior Patrick Strollo says he couldn't get a hold of his sister Hilary, a biology major at the school. "I knew something bad had happened because I found out about the news and I had been text messaging my sister and she did not respond," he says. Just as Patrick began to get scared, he received a phone call.

"On Sunday night, one of my good friends suffered a minor heart attack and was actually in the hospital Monday morning when the inflow of injured students started coming in," he says. "My sister was in the stall next to him, and he heard her spell out her name and give my father's cell phone number to the physician. And immediately when he heard that, he tore off all his heart monitors and got a cell phone and gave me a call to let me know."

Hilary had been shot three times as she sat in her French class—but she survived. Patrick says he spent the day of the shootings at his sister's side in the Intensive Care Unit until their parents arrived.