WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — The lockdown alert sent students from sitting at their desks to hiding behind them.
It interrupted classes all over campus.
WFMY News 2's Hannah Jeffries spoke with two students trapped in an emergency.
Classes were in session when chaos erupted. However, it wasn't a lecture or schoolwork that was interrupted for some, it was a school newscast.
That's when the journalists behind the desk realized they had turned into the subjects.
Forsyth Tech student Alexis Flinchum was practicing for her school news segment when a loud warning came over her headset.
"I was in our TV studio and I just hear get down over the headset. Then, I get a notification on my watch from the Tech Alerts that said there's a shooter at the Strickland Center which is where I was," Flinchum said.
Flinchum's mind went to the worst-case scenario.
"You see things that happen on the news all the time and you read about all of the stories, but you never think it's going to happen to you," he said.
Flinchum is a broadcast journalism student at Forsyth Tech. Just a few days ago—they were covering the Nashville school shooting.
Not far from Flinchum those same thoughts were going through her classmate Jabari Taylor-Reid's head.
"It was very ironic I’ll say," Taylor-Reid said. We report the news and we never expected to be the news."
After the hours-long lockdown, the class was allowed to leave, but the memory of what happened reminded them of what's truly important.
"I was just glad that it wasn't worse," Taylor-Reid continued, "Tell your people you love them cause you don't know when you're going to be in that situation you always think, it can't happen or it'll never happen to me, or it's always so far away, or I live in a small town nothing like that can ever happen and it absolutely can."
Flinchum and Taylor-Reid both say they left in such a rush they left some of their belongings, including their laptops.
Again, classes here at Forsyth Tech have been canceled for the rest of the week.
When they do come back, there will be mental health resources available.