(CNN) — A teacher who was injured in last month’s massacre at a Texas elementary school told ABC that his students were watching a movie when they heard gunshots, and asked him what was going on.
Arnulfo Reyes’ 11 students were among 19 children and two teachers killed by an attacker who broke into two adjoining classrooms at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.
“The kids started asking out loud, ‘Mr. Reyes, what’s going on?'” Reyes told ABC’s Amy Robach in an interview aired Monday on “World News Tonight with David Muir.”
“And I told them, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re going to go under the table. Get under the table and act like you’re asleep.’
“As they were doing that, and I was herding them under the table and telling them to act like they were going to sleep, that’s about the time I turned around and saw him standing there.”
The attacker from the Uvalde school opened fire, hitting Reyes; one bullet went through his arm and lung, and another hit his back, ABC reported.
Reyes couldn’t move after being shot, he said, and the shooter then aimed his gun at the students.
Officers were heard outside the classroom and a boy from another class pleaded with police to help him, Reyes said, but he believes officers had retreated down a hallway by this time, he told ABC.
“One of the students in the next room was saying, ‘Officer, we’re here. We’re here,'” he said. “But they were already gone.”
Maranda Mathis’ brother mourns her loss with his family in front of a cross bearing her name in Uvalde, Texas, on May 26, 2022.
The 18-year-old shooter, Salvador Ramos, shot students and teachers in Reyes’ classroom — room 111 — and in another adjoining room, according to authorities. He was in the Uvalde school classroom for more than an hour before he was shot dead by a Border Patrol tactical response team, a timeline provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety shows.
Officers had responded within minutes of the suspect entering the classroom, but were repelled by gunfire from the attacker and then stood in a hallway waiting for backup, even as children inside called 911 for help. to the police, indicates the chronology.
Reyes played dead for 77 minutes during the Uvalde massacre until the Border Patrol team shot Ramos down, he told ABC.
CNN’s Travis Caldwell contributed to this report.