Two brothers united after separately aiding students

By Kevin Vaughan
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

JEFFERSON COUNTY -- When twin brothers Nick and Adam Foss were finally reunited Thursday afternoon, each had plenty to tell the other.

The two 18-year-olds had been in different parts of Columbine High School when gunfire and explosions shattered a quiet Tuesday morning. And each had done his best to help others in the midst of a horrific scene.

"It was one of the scariest moments I have ever been in," Nick said after it was over, his head freshly grazed by a bullet. "These guys were killing just to kill."

When the gunfire started, Nick and other students helped herd people into a bathroom. At one point, he ventured a look out.

"I just saw guns and big black capes," he said. Then he heard gunfire and the bullet grazed the side of his head.

In another part of the building, Adam practiced for a choir concert that was supposed to be performed at an elementary school after lunch. When the trouble started, half the people in the room ran one way; the others ran with Adams to a cramped office. They waited there for hours.

Eventually they pulled out ceiling tiles and lifted several students with asthma up where the air was fresher.

In the packed room, some students prayed, some cried.

"We kept them as calm as possible," Adam said.

At one point, the tension was cut by a ringing telephone. It was the elementary school calling, wondering what was holding up the concert.

Eventually SWAT officers rescued the students.

Nick, in the meantime, decided he had to get out of the bathroom. He had tried to pound on the wall of another room, but no one answered. So he, his friend Tim Castle and other students crawled into the ceiling. They crept through the school on heat ducts looking for other students to warn.

As Nick moved along, the duct broke. He plunged 18 feet through the ceiling into the teacher's lounge, where he landed on his side on a table.

He got up and ran and he didn't stop until he met police officers outside.

"You die, or not -- that's what it came down to," Nick said.

Students and staff throughout the campus faced the same kind of harrowing circumstances.

Maintenance man Jon Curtis was in the basement near the cafeteria when he saw a gunman standing in the soccer field about 100 yards away dressed in a black trench coat.

"He appeared to be armed with a high-powered rifle and was shooting in the direction of the cafeteria," Curtis said. "I went into the cafeteria to try to evacuate students inside."

Curtis said he found one student with a gunshot wound in what appeared to be his back. Curtis said that he tried to offer encouragement to the youngster, telling him to hang in there, help is on the way.

"We never thought it would happen in here; it's basically a bad dream," Curtis said.

Staff writers Hector Gutierrez and Mike Patty contributed to this report.