|
Local soldier safe from Fort Hood shootings
There were a couple of nervous families in the area on Thursday afternoon, Nov. 5 when they heard the news that a shooting had taken place at Fort Hood, Texas.
Mary Bergen of Jasper has a son Nick and daughter-in-law Kelly stationed at Fort Hood. Kelly is the daughter of Doug and Marilyn Folkerts of rural Edgerton.
Bergen and Marilyn Folkerts both commented they were really concerned until they heard from Kelly, letting them know she and the kids were okay.
The shooting took place around 1:30 p.m. at the post’s Soldier Readiness Center where soldiers undergo medical screening before being deployed or after returning from overseas.
Thirteen people were killed and 31 wounded after the gunman-opened fire. The gunman has been identified a Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, a psychiatrist who worked at Fort Hood and was going to be deployed at the end of this month.
Kelly said in a phone interview Friday morning that the situation was scary. “It was pretty chaotic. We ended up just sitting in the house and waiting.”
Her husband wasn’t on the base at the time. In fact, Nick had left on Monday for San Antonio where he will be doing a month of medical training.
The housing development the couple lives in is a couple of miles from the main base but that didn’t make any difference when the base was put on lockdown.
“A siren went off and a lady came by and told us what to do,” explained Kelly. “She told us to take shelter immediately, turn off the air conditioner, close all our windows and the curtains. At this time we didn’t know if it was a drill or real thing.” The lockdown was for about five hours and lasted until around 7:30 p.m.
As this was taking place, her husband contacted her after he received a call from his company and was told there was a situation at the base.
“Nick was pretty frantic when he called because they didn’t tell him what was going on—just that he should call his family,” said Kelly.
For a time it was hard to get a phone line to make a call. Kelly, who only has a cell phone, did receive a lot of text message from friends though. “Everyone was freaked out,” she said.
She mentioned that officially they didn’t hear what was going on until about 5 p.m. but by that time, she had learned what the situation was from television and radio reports.
Kelly said she had a call from a friend’s mother wondering if Kelly could go to the elementary school and pick up her grandson. Kelly was not able to go get the child as children were kept at school during the lockdown.
“When I went outside it was really weird,” she said. “It was really quiet. There were no dogs, no people or anything outside.”
She said that things were pretty much back to normal out where they live, but not on the base.
|
