Rachel Swenson Article

by Magnolia McComish

Rachel Swenson huddled in a music closet with 30 other students at Reed Intermate School. She passed the time playing chopsticks on the floor with Erin Kowalski, during what they thought was just another lockdown drill. 

“We didn’t have any phones or anything, so we had no idea how long we had been in there, we just thought we were super bored,” said Swenson. “It got weird when they had us leave in a single-file line without our instruments.”   

After a couple of hours, Swenson’s class was moved back to the music room, taking an alternative route to avoid as many windows as possible. Once back, a faculty member spoke to the teacher privately. She returned to the class with puffy eyes and running makeup.  

The class was asked if anyone had relatives at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Swenson’s friend Ryan Tani’s mother was a sub at Sandy Hook. He was pulled aside and told what had happened.  

“Ryan came back into the room sobbing, he told me he couldn’t say anything right now, but he would tell me on the bus,” said Swenson. “That is when I started banging my wrist on the desk, I have never experienced anxiety like I had that day.” 

Swenson doesn’t remember how she got onto the bus just that the sky had a storm of helicopters, and that her once average hometown was now crawling with cops and SWAT.   

The bus was filled with children in shock and disbelief. The severity of the situation seemed unimaginable at just 11 years old. They spent the bus ride guessing at what could have happened. 

“We thought that 27 kids were killed and 6 adults, our total in our brains was higher than what it actually turned out to be, but we weren’t far off,” she said.  

To understand what was happening took more than just experiencing the aftermath. For Swenson, the moment it set in was when she got off the bus and saw her divorced parents in the same car. It had been years since she saw them together.  

She said, “in my head, I couldn’t piece together that something had actually happened. Like I was 11, but when I saw that they were both there it clicked for me. It was real.”  

Swenson sat with her brother and stepsister in the kitchen of her mom’s house while her parents tried to explain what had happened.  

Millions mourned while watching the news that night, but Swenson was watching for the names, “Erin’s brother had been killed. I just thought wow seven hours ago I was playing chopsticks on the floor with her.”