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Samantha Hayes Reporting Surviving the weeks, months and years following traumatic events, like school shootings, can be more difficult for some than the incident itself. That’s how one young woman feels. She survived the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado in 1999.
Liz Carlston knows exactly how students in Red Lake, Minnesota are feeling. After the Columbine shooting she felt worn down by painful memories lasting years. So she decided to write about her experience in an effort to express how she felt, what she learned, and how she survived.
Everyone knows what happened in Littleton, Colorado.
Liz Carlston, Author, Surviving Columbine: “When people hear ‘Columbine’ it’s always a negative connotation. It’s bad thought come to your mind.”
Liz Carlston was inside the school six years ago when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed twelve students and a teacher. That teacher was also Carlston's basketball coach, who died trying to save other students.
Liz Carlston: “Whenever I’d play basketball it would just, you know, it reminds you of Coach Sanders and that was just hard to do.”
And for several years it was hard to escape the connection to such a sinister event.
Liz Carlston: “Before I had been a victim I just decided that, oh well, I was a student at Columbine and I would just be sad about it for a long time. Early on I thought that it defined who I was.”
‘Surviving Columbine’ was a journey in faith for Carlston, and through that she found peace.
Liz Carlston: "But with time and prayer and perspective and friends helping and sharing your experiences the pain goes away."
We may think we know all that happened in Littleton, Colorado, but there's more to the story of survivors like Carlston who say good things did happen in the wake of that tragedy.
Liz Carlston: "The purpose of this life isn't to be miserable and sad all the time but to find joy and become the best people we can be."
The book was published last year on the fifth anniversary of the Columbine shootings. Carlston says her greatest joy is knowing she overcame it and other people have too.
