My Daughter Was in the Mass Shooting at Brown, and I Wasn’t Trained for What to Do

This moment will come for too many of us.

Originally published by The Contrarian under the headline, “What Parents Can Do When Their Child Is in an Active-Shooter Lockdown.”

The text, from a fellow ER doctor and former Brown University faculty member, arrived at 4:27 p.m. on Saturday: “Active shooter near Brown engineering building? Is Hannah ok?”

Within seconds, I looked on my phone for my daughter’s location—she was on campus in Friedman Hall. I texted her. It was real. There was an active shooter. She was hiding in a bathroom with her four best friends. For the next 24 hours, I lived every parent’s nightmare while learning hard lessons about a reality even I was not trained for…

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