UNO Swimmer Shares Experience From Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooting

Thanks to University of Nebraska – Omaha junior Olivia McLain for sharing what she and her team experienced at the Fort Lauderdale airport earlier this month.

January 6th, the last day of our training trip in Key West, Florida had finally come. We woke up that morning at 6am, and biked down to the pool to have practice number 17 of 17 before we traveled back home to Omaha.

Our 11-day training trip filled with brutal swimming, biking, running and plenty of burpees were finally over. The team was so excited to finally get ready to go back to Omaha At 9am, the bus departed and we had a four-hour bus ride ahead of us to the Fort Lauderdale International Airport to catch a flight at 3pm.

I like to say that McDonalds was our guardian angel that day, as we stopped and took an extra long lunch break in Key Largo. After lunch, I put my headphones in and listened to music trying to pass the time until we got to the airport.

At about 1:15, the bus pulled up to Terminal 2. There were police cars everywhere and hundreds of people out on the Tarmac.

Everyone on the team was really confused. At first I thought maybe it’s a welcoming home event for our soldiers, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. One of my teammates pulled it up on her phone and announced that there was a shooting just 15-minutes ago in Terminal 2 and they had the gunman in custody.

As we got off the bus and grabbed our luggage, everyone was calling and texting their friends and families. I texted my mom and told her there was a shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport, the shooter was custody, and we got there after the shooting and we were all okay.

The terminal was locked down, so we all sat outside of Terminal 2. I remember looking out and being completely horrified that this event just took place right under where I was standing. From where the team was, you could see the baggage claim door, were the shooting took place and 5 innocent people had their lives taken away from them, and 6 were wounded. You could see a trail of blood leading to a puddle of blood to someone who had been shot. There were police all over, and all we could do was wait.

As we waited, girls pulled out their lap tops and watched movies, listened to music, played cards, and called and texted their families. I was in the middle of texting my mom when a police man sped past us going towards traffic with his sirens blaring. In the crowd of people, everyone stood up to see what was going on. I stood up and heard the officer yell “run!”.

When an officer yells to run, you don’t question it, you just do it.

Everyone dropped to the floor, and I just grabbed on to one of my teammates in complete shock of what was happening. In a split second everyone just got up and started running to the next terminal. I fell, and looked over to see my coach trying to get everyone on the team out of there. My coach looked over at me and yelled “its okay Olive” and I got up and ran as fast as I could.

All I could think about while I was running was someone is going to shoot me. I was in complete terror that I was just going to feel a sharp pain in my back at any moment.

As we were running to the next terminal I tried to watch for my teammates to try and stay with them. I watched one teammate do a complete front flip onto a bench and get up and keep running.

I grabbed the back of one of their shirts to make sure I didn’t get separated. We ran straight into Terminal 3 all the way past security and we hid in a bathroom.

I was with one teammate in a bathroom stall. We were both in tears not knowing what was going on. Luckily, I had my purse on me, and had my phone and charger with me. The first thing I did was call my mom, which was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. At that point we had no idea what was going to happen. We didn’t know if we were safe, or if the shooter was right outside the bathroom.

After about 15-minutes, someone walked in and said we needed to go into another room. We left the bathroom and we moved to a break room in the back of a store. There were about 50 people smashed into a small room. I was with just 10 of my teammates, and we had no idea if our other teammates were okay or the coaches.

Our team captain was with us, and our head coach texted her trying to figure out where everyone was. We learned that the two coaches were together in a TSA break room, the other half of the team was still in the bathrooms, and one girl who got separated was out on the tarmac with a group of people.

It was a relief knowing that our team was okay, but we still had no idea what was happening. They were not telling us anything so all we had was the news coming in from our phones from social media and other people.

In that time, I learned that there was talk of a second active shooter in the parking garage.

After about 45-minutes, an officer came into the break room and said we were leaving. We each had to walk out with our hands up, be patted down, and have our bags searched. Then we had to line up against a wall. It was completely terrifying walking out and seeing all these officers some in uniform, some not, with their guns out and ready. I felt like a suspect.

A group of officers escorted us down the escalator, and through the baggage claim area. As we were walking through you could see that people ran in terror. There were shoes left, food dropped, and luggage all over the place. Looking at that scene you could tell people ran for their lives.

We were escorted outside, because they were completely clearing the airport.

I will never forget walking outside and seeing the other half of my team and coaches. We all ran to each other and everyone hugged each other. Most of the girls were in tears. It was a relief to be back with my team and know everyone was safe.

What was not a relief is we were sitting right next to Terminal 2 baggage claim were the shooting occurred and blood was all over the sidewalk.

As we were outside there was hundreds and hundreds of people just waiting to find out when we could leave, and what was happening. There was a Bomb Squad, SWAT team, FBI, military and officers everywhere. It should have been comforting knowing there was so many men and women in uniform there to protect you, but it wasn’t.

After about an hour of sitting around and waiting, someone yelled “RUN! We all started running to the closest building, which was Terminal 2 baggage claim. Everyone ran through the crime scene tape and through the doors. I was in a stampede of people and got pushed down and walked on until one of my teammates grabbed me and dragged me into the baggage claim area.

The first thing I saw when I looked up was a cop who had his gun out and pointed right at me. I was in shock, and thought both my legs were legitimately broken because people had walked all over me.

I looked around to see we were in the crime scene area. There was crime scene tape everywhere, luggage everywhere; I even saw the blood from the victims. I could not stop crying.

The officers said we needed to get out and go back outside, but we didn’t know if we were even safe. The officer told us that when people see officers with guns, people start to get nervous and assured us we were safe.

We walked outside and I was still in tears after everything that had just happened. I had an officer come up to me and tell me everything was going to be okay, but after running for my life twice, I was doubtful.

We sat outside for what seemed like forever. At around 7pm, we were able to go in groups upstairs to grab our luggage, and at 8pm we were released. We got on a bus to go to Port Everglades, and from there we took a bus to Miami and stayed the night at the hotel.

That night I could not fall asleep. I was completely traumatized by everything that happened. I just wanted to go home, but that wasn’t going to happen until Sunday because finding a flight for 30 girls last minute is something that isn’t easy to find.

Once Sunday came we were all ready to go home. Unfortunately, the team was broken up on three different flights. I was the first flight so we left the hotel at 3:00am. to depart to the Miami airport. It took forever to check in, and our flight was delayed. It was delayed so long that we missed our connection flight to Houston because United wouldn’t wait for 17 passengers.

Once we finally got to Houston, our coach decided that the 16 of us would bus back to Omaha because otherwise we wouldn’t fly out of Houston until Tuesday night at earliest.

The 16-hour bus ride was rough, but it was a relief to know that we were finally going home and it was a for sure thing now. Once we got to Oklahoma City, the bus company felt bad for us and upgraded us to a tour bus with beds, which made the trip a little better.

At about 9:30pm, the bus broke down. We were stalled for about half an hour and then finally got back on the road again. At that pointing we were all laughing because at that point what else could go wrong.

At around 2am, we finally made it back to our own stomping grounds. I have never been so excited to be back in 20-degree weather.

Yes, the University of Nebraska at Omaha Women’s swim team is all back in Omaha and safe. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t struggling to deal with the experience that we all had. That moment in time impacted each and every one of us.

Since I have been home, the reactions from people have been hard to hear. Someone came up to me and said, “I’m glad you didn’t get shot”. I don’t find that to be funny at all, because although, we weren’t in the initial shooting, in that time we were running for our lives from what was rumored to be a second active shooter. And running for your life is something that is indescribable. The event that took place for us was real.

One thing I will say, is I am so happy to be part of such a great program were everyone is with each other til the end. Our team saying this year is “Rise Together” and that’s exactly what we did and continue to do each day and move forward from this tragic event.