Members Of Duquesne Women's Swim Team Discuss Chaotic Airport Shooting

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – The scene that unfolded in the Fort Lauderdale Airport last week was chaotic to say the least, even surreal for the people who lived through it, and that includes the Duquesne University women's swim team.

The ladies were down in Florida for spring training, and just as they were about to head home, the bullets started flying.

The team members were heading home in different terminals, so there were only three members of the swim team in Terminal Two, where the shooting occurred.

In the shooting confusion of the Fort Lauderdale Airport Terminal Two, Shelly Heim heard the sound of running and screaming behind her in the gate area.

"It was a very surreal thing to turn around and see a mob of people coming at me," Heim, a junior, said, "and I didn't think at all. I just jumped, and I somehow had my phone in my pocket, thankfully, and I sprinted down the hallway 'cause I was facing an emergency exit."

Not far away, Hallie McCue, a senior, saw the fear on the faces of those running and "got up, and someone screamed, 'Get down!'"

She hit the floor and crawled under the seats, and someone was on top of her.

"Somewhere in the midst of all this, I heard gunshots," she said. "I don't know how many. I don't remember. It's such a blur."

She found herself face-to-face with a 10-year-old girl.

"She was screaming and crying, and I looked at her and I said, 'We're gonna be okay, we will get out,'" McCue said.

Meanwhile, Heim was the first person to the emergency exit, but the door wouldn't open.

"Someone was screaming, 'Get down, get down,' and we all curled up on the ground," she said. "There were people climbing on top of me, and nobody knew what was going on."

Someone did get the door open, and they all escaped in a crush onto the tarmac. While back at the gate area, McCue and the little girl got off the floor.

"I grabbed her hand, and we ran out onto the gateway," McCue said.

McCue and Heim were safe and called Coach Dave Sheets, who was desperately calling his third swimmer in Terminal Two, Lauren Devorace. It turned out, she was hiding behind a bar and was afraid to speak, so she sent a text and Sheets replied, "Wherever you are, stay where you are."

"'Are you with people?' She said, 'yes.' I said, 'Don't say anything, be quiet, and wait 'til the authorities come get you,'" Sheets said.

Eventually the ladies got out of the airport, and senior Lilly Nelson saw them walking toward their van in the jammed traffic outside the airport. She reached McCue first.

"I just hugged her so tight," Nelson said. "And she hugged me so tight, and we both just cried. And it's just a terrifying thing you never expect to go through."

Once McCue was outside with the little girl in tow, it took about half an hour to find the little girl's mother, but they were reunited.

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