The guard told me that there was an active shooter nearby. It was the 3 words he said he really scared me.

It is the white noise of the helicopter blades cut into the air – not the continuous sirens for an emergency vehicle – who rejected me that something was wrong.

In New York, the chaos – the cry of an ambulance, the continuous suggest of the horns – is so common that it becomes unnoticed, repetitive chorus. Therefore, when I heard the sounds of fire engines and cars for a cop while I was sitting on the 14th floor of my space for cooperation in Midtown Manhattan, I didn’t think much of them. Last week, there was a festival on the street with live singing, which lasted for an hour. That was, I thought, the city’s soundtrack.

It was already the past 18:30, but I just needed another hour of focus to complete a client project. I was in a definitely “quiet” space where people have no right to talk aloud. There were about five of us who were sitting there, plowing through their work. But every 10 minutes or more, people from other rooms on the floor would gather behind me to look at a window and quietly grin at each other. After about half an hour I decided to pack and go home, because the scattering was too much.

Then the helicopters came in. Something was wrong.

At 7 pm, I slid my laptop into my backpack, tore a few last sips of my mango tea, and headed for the main area of cooperation to throw my garbage. Then I started to catch fragments of conversations with full voting.

Something about an active shooter.

Something about the building on the other side of the street.

Something about being stuck here.

This may not be correctI thought. I even asked one person if there was an alternative way out, but he just shrugged and left.

I quickly threw my laptop bag over my shoulder and headed down to the lobby to find out about myself. After being on the ground floor, I saw the excitement in front of the glass doors from wall to wall and a blue wave of police officers walking back and forth on the street. I realized that every word I heard was true.

What we will find out later is that around 6:30 pm a 27-year-old man named Shane Devon Tamura had He entered 345 Park Ave. with m4 and found fire In the lobby, before heading to the elevator to continue the fury above, tragically killing four people and himself. As a result, the building I was in, which was directly on the other side of the street, was a lock.

At that moment, however, the details were scarce. Yes, the lobby companions have confirmed that an active situation is happening for the shooters, which is happening directly on the other side of the street. And no, we couldn’t leave the building. Instead, me and about 10 other people in the lobby told me from security to do something I thought I would never do it: “shelter on the spot.”

If the Sagittarius confirmed causes fear in me, these three small words – the command to shelter on the spot – to light it. I knew that on -site shelter served as an important goal for emergencies that minimize a threat. But wasn’t it a shelter in the place they told the people in the South Tower to do after the North Tower was hit on September 11? Wasn’t it a shelter in a place that people who had no other means to escape when the Hurricane Katrina struck? Wasn’t it a shelter in the place that people in paradise, California, were forced to do when the roads were blocked and there was no way to escape from the fires?

Living in this city is always to guard and be ready for a red signal. You know exactly how many seconds of eye contact is needed to let someone dangerously see them, but you don’t look at them. You know what ways to look before Jaywalking over the street. You know where to sit on the train and how to position yourself so that it is the least likely to become a victim of a crime.

When I read about other tragedies, I told myself that the shelter on the spot was not always the most secure option and that I would take a break for it if I was ever in this situation. But at the moment of escalation of anxiety and the shock of how close I was in danger, I did not run and did not fight, as I expected and planned from the comfort of my home. I turned on my heels and headed back to the elevator bank to get back to 14th floor with everyone else.

“Stay away from the windows,” the lobby’s companions reminded us as we were waiting for the elevator doors to open back.

Back there was a mix of reactions. Some people specifically peek through the windows, trying to understand what was happening in the office building against us. Others seemed to be still difficult to work with their laptops. They were even more likely to be hidden in other rooms. But it was ominously quiet. As I walked on the floor, looking for the most secure place to accommodate, I caught the eye of a kind stranger who must have noticed the confusion of my face.

“Do I have to worry better?” I told him, looking for some comfort.

“Maybe,” he replied. – Maybe not. He kindly invited me to sit with him and his girlfriend, but I wanted another wall between the outer windows and me. Instead, by 7:30 pm, I was burned in an interior office and hesitated between my Twitter, CNN and a text chain with worried friends – one of whom actually worked in the building on the other side of the street, but (fortunately) it worked home that day.

At the time, no one knew what was going on. They did not know if the Sagittarius was a lonely arms or he had accomplices with him in the building. I watched footage online of people who have handcuffed and accompanied away from the stage directly in front of my building. Authorities did not know if this was an isolated incident or had more expected in the area. On my floor, a man casually mentioned that he was worried that the shooter could have a bomb.

I knew that people on the other side of the street from me were in exponentially a greater danger than I was. I knew that the terror they were experiencing was the most serious appearance. And at the same time, I had to remind myself that I was still in a very true area of danger and had to take it seriously. The fact that I could not reduce or ignore the emotional and physical pulsation effects that this event had, even though I and those around me were not in the center of them. The proximity to the danger also grows panic and leaves influence even after you are clear.

I was sitting in this interior office and listening nervously the updates that entered the speaker every 20 minutes, or so it reminded us to stay and stay away from the windows. By 8:30 pm, we finally received a different message: We could have left the building through a side exit.

I am embarrassed to say that I barely looked at the other people on the floor or murmured goodbye before I rushed to the elevator to head down and a way out that I have never seen before. As I quickly passed half a mile from the crime scene, before I got on the subway, I had nothing but think about what had happened.

Everyone has a plan, they say until you hit your mouth. Sometimes there is a break between how we think we will behave and what we actually do in unpredictable and disturbing moments. Are we kind? Are we brave? Are we selfless? Are we unraveling? Do we exclude? Do we squeeze?

No matter how you act in horrific situations, you should not be judged too rudely. What I had to remind of as a New Yorker is that this city is completely unpredictable. Even the best placed plans fall apart every day. I am grateful that I benefit from the opportunity to plan another day.

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