Newtown mother recounts tragic day

NEWTOWN, Conn. (WPRI) -- Tragedy struck a Connecticut elementary school Friday when a gunman killed 20 small children and six adults.

The mother of a 7-year-old at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown spoke with Eyewitness News about what was going through her mind as she raced to find her child at the school.

"Fear. I just immediately ran to the school to try to find my son and make sure he was ok," said Christine Wilford.

She said her son Richard's school sent out a phone blast, a recording "saying that all Newtown schools were on lockdown due to report of a shooting."

"We immediately went online to see if we could find out anything," added Wilford. "A neighbor who was over, she called her husband who said the report was Sandy hook, and we all immediately jumped in the cars and headed towards the school."

When the frantic parents arrived in the area of the school, they weren't able to get near it due to all of the commotion.

"We were directed to the fire house, which is kind of at the end of the small road that the school is down, and they said that the children who had been evacuated were in there," Wilford said. "There was just a lot of parents that were parking out on the main road and running in there, finding their children. Everyone was trying to help each other find their kids."

Wilford is a former Providence resident that moved to Newtown only a couple of years ago.

"We fell in love with the town as soon as we came here, we felt like it was a great place to raise our family," she said.

As for her 7-year-old son Richard, she said that he seems to be doing fine.

"He just said that it sounded like there was cans dropping, lots of loud noises. His teacher stepped out in the hallway, immediately came back in, locked the door, and put them all into a corner and had them read silently until a police officer came and escorted them out of the building."