Florida High School Student Reveals Best Friend Saved Her Life By Telling Her To Hold Up Book To Block Bullets – Before She Was Killed

The horrific shooting in Florida has shocked as all.

We can’t even comprehend the dreadful things these students and teachers had to witness.

For junior Samantha Grady, she had just pulled out her cell phone to show her best friend something during their Holocaust Class.

That’s when her life changed forever.

The high school student watched her best friend die Wednesday afternoon.

The cruel and sadistic shooter entered her classroom just moments after her friend gave her a piece of advice which ultimately saved her life.

The gunman, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, approached their classroom and shot her friend.

She was one of at least 17 people killed in the high school massacre.

Grady says she managed to escape the classroom with just minor wounds at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

In an emotional interview on the Today Show Thursday, the teen credited her friend, who she didn’t identify, for helping her survive the ordeal.

‘There was a big bookshelf and we all kind of huddled there together,’ Grady told Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb.

‘We all clamped really close tightly together.’

As the class hid behind the bookshelf, a few reached out to push a cabinet in front of them to attempt to keep the shooter away and block some of the bullets.

But then, she said, Cruz ‘came for our classroom.’

She said the door was locked but he shot ‘quite a few bullets into the glass,’ hitting some of the people standing beside and behind her.

Then, knowing he could get into the classroom, the students started running – but not before Samantha’s friend uttered the words that ultimately saved her best friend’s life.

‘Grab a book, grab a book,’ Grady said her friend told her.

‘It was a tiny book, but I took it and held it up.’

(Broward County Jail via AP)

Grady was grazed by a few bullets as she sprinted out of the school.

The teen had to pass the bodies of two of the first people shot as she ran through the hallways.

‘The book kind of deterred some of the bullets, so they didn’t hit me so badly,’ she explained.

But as for her friend, ‘unfortunately, she didn’t make it,’ she said, struggling to contain her tears.

‘She was the one who gave me the idea. She helped me a lot,’ Grady said.

Once she escaped from the school, Grady ducked down behind a truck.

She called her parents to assure them she was OK – noting that she didn’t ‘want them to go crazy.’

Through her shock and grief she managed to walk over to an ambulance.

She was taken to the hospital for her wounds, where she was eventually reunited with her parents.

The gunman, Cruz, appeared in court for the first time at 2pm Thursday.

to be arraigned on 17 counts of premeditated murder – charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty.