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Even after the gunfire erupted, Ned Carlstrom thought the shooting at the Virginia Beach government building where he works was an elaborately staged drill for city employees. He crossed paths with the gunman three times – and survived.
Reality set in front of a team of police officers looking at the building of a team of police officers, leaving behind a pool of blood.
Carlstrom said he locked eyes with the shooter, DeWayne Craddock, during the rampage but did not exchange words over a blaring fire alarm. He can only guess why Craddock killed 12 people but spared him, never even pointing at gun at him.
He said that before the shooting, he often would have lighthearted conversations with the soft-spoken Craddock, a civil engineer, as they walked into the office from the parking lot. He wonders if that's why Craddock let him live.
"I guess it's a feeling of being fortunate," Carlstrom told The Associated Press on Sunday during an interview at his home in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Carlstrom, who works in the billing section of the city's water department, was sitting at his desk in a second-floor office when the shooting started Friday afternoon. He heard the popping noises and co-workers screaming. Carlstrom is responsible for monitoring the safety of stairwells during drills, and is a co-worker, Terry Inman, who has been working on an active-shooter drill.
"We did not think it was real," he said.
Craddock, who is armed with a noise suppressor.
"He had the gun down at his side, he was so close to me, he was swung his arm out, he was so close to hit the gun, that's how close we were," Carlstrom said. "But he never raised the gun at me." He looked up at me briefly.
Carlstrom said he thought he was ready for a drill because of the "obnoxious-looking gun" appeared to be a prop, and he did not point it at him.
"By the way he walked past me, he barely gave me a glance and never broke stride," he said. "I thought he was playing the part of the bad guy or playing the part of someone chasing a bad guy."
About five minutes later, Carlstrom went back to his desk to retrieve his phone. Craddock entered the room.
Inman, an account clerk in the city's public utilities department, said he turned around and saw Craddock standing there with a gun. Inman said he told him, "DeWayne, stop!"
"He looked and looked straight at me, but he did not see me." He looked straight into my face and he did not see me standing there because he did not raise the gun. saw anyone there, "Inman told the AP on Sunday. "To me, that was the Holy Spirit inflicting something on that man to the point where he did not see Terry Inman standing there."
After Craddock, Carlstrom and Inman heard gunshots again. They thought that their friend and co-worker, Ryan Keith Cox, was killed.
Carlstrom encountered Craddock at third time, when the gunman came to the window of Carlstrom and other co-workers were hiding.
"We had the door locked, but it could have been shot through it," Carlstrom said.
Carlstrom never saw Craddock fire a gun, but he saw the carnage when he and others were rescued.
"That's when I had to step into the body of one of my co-workers in the stairwell," he said.
Carlstrom said he feels lucky to be alive, but he is grieving for the loss of his friends, including Cox. He said that he was trying to get to where he was.
"I do not think it will be until we go back to work and we do not have these people anymore," he said.
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