UVALDE, Texas (WSVN) — Third grader Chance Aguirre shared the moment he waited in the lunch room during the the deadly shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas.

“Everybody was scared,” said Chance. “We were all panicking because we didn’t know what was really happening.”

The 9-year-old said he had just finished an honors ceremony before being urgently told to hide with his class.

“All we saw were thousands of police and border patrol coming into the cafeteria, and we were all hiding behind a stage at the cafeteria when it happened,” he said.

Chance said law enforcement rushed the students out of the cafeteria. The students then ran outside to safety and went to a home across the street.

“All that we saw were like policemen, helicopter and police just going everywhere,” he said. “We had to leave the school. We didn’t get picked up at the school by the buses. We went to a house, and then that’s when we got picked up.”

Chance’s mother, Nikki Astling, took a picture of the moment her son was reunited his older sister, who is a fifth grader at another school.

His mother is grateful her son is alive, but felt a sense of guilt knowing so many other innocent lives were taken.

“My heart just breaks for them, for everybody. We’re such as small community that it really is – everybody knows everybody here, everybody’s just been so affected. I don’t – there are no words that can make this any better,” said Astling.

Grief counselors were available for those that needed them at the town’s civic center.

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