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SYDNEY - An Australian student studying at Virginia Tech where a gunman has shot dead 32 people says she realises how lucky she is not to have been caught up in the mayhem.
Lesley Garard from Gympie in Queensland said she rang her family immediately to let them know she was okay.
"I rang them all up at 1 o'clock in the morning and so they wouldn't wake up and hear the news and worry," she told the Seven Network.
"I have classes actually in Norris Hall, where the shootings took place, on Mondays in the afternoons, although this week my classes were online, but I can totally picture the room where these people would have been in and it just hits home how lucky I am that I could have been in the situation when that occurred."
Ms Garard said the university first sent an email at 7am US eastern time, after the first shooting saying there had been an "incident" in one of the dormitories and classes were cancelled.
"Then probably at ten o'clock in the morning we heard an enormous amount of sirens everywhere and the university sent us out another email to say that all the dorms would be locked and basically the first I knew about the seriousness of the issue was when I turned on CNN here in my dorm," Ms Garard said.
There was initially concern that there was more than one shooter, she said.
"Apparently the shooter had shot at both sides of the drill field, which is quite a large area, so he has gone from the dorm area where he has done a number of his shootings and then he's crossed a large drill field into a building that is mainly classrooms and that is where he has done most of the killings," Ms Garard said.
"I'd say that by the sounds of it, and from what I know of the building it sounds like he's just walked in a doorway of a classroom and shot everybody in sight.
"If you think about the numbers that they're talking about that were shot in Norris, that's about how big a classroom is."
Ms Garard told ABC Radio in Queensland the shooting would not scare her away from finishing her communications degree at Virginia Tech.
"I just can't wait to get home, but I'm not going to let this scare me away from finishing my semester," she said.
"I love Blacksburg, I love the town, so I'm going to finish up and then I'm going to come home as fast as I can."
Ms Garard said she was yet to leave her dorm room since the shootings, but intended to have a look around the campus shortly.
"I'm actually wanting to go down and perhaps leave some flowers or something down in Norris Hall, and just go down and see if I can support any of the students down there that I know," she said.
Ms Garard's mother said she was still shaken by the incident.
"It's going to take me a while to get over it," her mother told Seven.
"I just feel sick, I really do, I really feel sick."
Australian diplomats in Washington are seeking information on eight other Australians believed to be enrolled at Virginia Tech.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said there were no reports yet of any Australian casualties.
"We are not aware of any Australians caught up in the situation and the embassy in Washington is investigating," a DFAT spokesman said.
- AAP
