ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — There are moments you just don't forget. The massacre at Columbine High School happened decades ago, but the pain continues.
"I remember, I just kind of close my eyes and I clenched my body. I waited. I waited for death," Crystal Woodman Miller said.
She was a junior when the shooting happened. She hid under a table in the library with friends, praying the shooters wouldn't turn and see them.
"They were only in there seven and a half minutes, but those seven and a half minutes felt like an eternity as they wove in and out of tables. They were gunning down their victims. I remember wondering what it would be like to be shot. At 16, I was waiting for death," Woodman Miller said.
One of her teachers was running from the cafeteria to the library to try and get their students out of the building.
"He ran into the cafeteria to warn people that there was somebody with a gun. He was shot by the shooters while he was running," Coni Sanders said.
Sanders, just 26 at the time, lost her father that day.
"He was amazing. He was Dave Sanders. He was a coach, a dad, a grandpa, a business teacher, and he loved coaching," Sanders said.
Both women are forever connected by the same moment that changed their lives forever. Twenty-two years later, they have their own families and live with the reality that the horror of Columbine could happen again.
"When another shooting happens, I usually feel a feeling of hopelessness because we just keep experiencing this and it doesn't feel like we're making any headway. But I know that we are as a society, we are talking about these things more, we're getting smarter about how we talk about them," Sanders said.
The latest shooting at a Boulder, Colorado, grocery store hit especially close to home, but as they work to comfort the families affected, they hope for change.
"Here we are, 22 years later, and these have become so commonplace, unfortunately. It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to think that even yesterday, this far down the road, that there are still 10, people that weren't going to return home to their families. There are so many things that we face as a society today that I sincerely want people to know that there's hope," Woodman Miller said.
Their biggest message is if you're emotionally going through a personal experience, the loss of someone you love or just feeling empathy for those impacted, you're not alone. They recommend talking through those feelings with a mental health professional.
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