Hero P.E. teacher looks back on hostage situation 10 years later

In February 2013, a gunman held students hostage inside Chelsea Middle School. A Physical Education teacher heroically sprang into action and thankfully no one was hurt.

10 years later, that teacher reflects back on that moment.

"Seconds matter and a person has to be ready to do something quick," Sandy Evers, former Chelsea Middle P.E. Teacher said.

It was 3 p.m., February 12, 2013. Students were getting on buses at the end of the day at Chelsea Middle and some students still on campus were getting dressed for after school activities.

"A 6th grade girl comes running up to me and she says 'Coach Evers Coach Evers, there's a man in the locker room with a gun!'" Evers said. "And time stood still. I was shocked. You're not ready to hear those words."

Evers, now the Assistant Principal at Oak Mountain High School, had to react fast. She ran to the gym area, saw the gunman, and got the girls she could see out of the way as the gunman escaped into the locker room.

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"I had to make decisions very quickly because a lot of girls were trying to come down to get into the locker room," she said. "I needed to get these girls away from this danger."

Evers and a custodian blocked the entrances.

"If he came up those stairs I would just have to take him out somehow - with my body or whatever," Evers said. "I put the rest of the kids - there were about 300 still in there and just said 'we're in lockdown - I need everybody to get down... God was with us every step of the way that day. Your brain gets foggy - that fight or flight comes in."

She didn't know at the time, but four students were trapped inside the locker room with the gunman. Negotiators were able to talk him into releasing the girls and coming out.

"They were barefoot in their PE clothes running down the hall screaming my name and I'm like 'hey where are y'all coming from?' We had just cleared everything and they had been in the locker room with him and they grabbed onto me and I said 'I won't let you go! Come with me!' And we locked ourselves in classrooms at that time," Evers said.

"I was in mama bear mode and I was like I'm going home to my kids and all 300 of these kids are going home today," she said.

They did all go home that day. Evers says Shelby County took a close look at what worked that day and what didn't work and added new safety measures to each of its campuses.