Steve Joordens

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Yeah, I mean, it's really tough.

And the level of toughness kind of depends on the extent to which a given individual felt like their life was truly in danger.

Those kids that were in the middle of it and that literally thought this could be it, our brain does something crazy

in that state, we refer to it as PTSD.

We think of PTSD as a bad thing.

What the brain is actually doing is kind of saying, oh my goodness, I'm in a life or death situation.

What was happening just before this?

Is there anything in my environment that I can latch onto so that in the future, if that thing happens again, I can be ready for this before it happens.

And so that's really what PTSD is.

Now, the problem is it was probably a random shooting.

So we have kids who might've

I don't know, eaten a sandwich or heard a song or smelled a given smell or whatever it might be.

And then suddenly they realize their life is in danger.

For those children, that stimulus, whatever it could be, could be an instant trigger to bring them back to that fear that they have.

And that's what we really think of as PSD.

So for the ones most directly impacted,

This is a very strong, enduring thing the brain does.

It's meant to keep them safe.