'I've Always Felt Like Eventually It Was Going to Happen Here, Too,' Says Texas Shooting Survivor

"It's been happening everywhere," the student, reportedly named Paige, said after at least eight people were killed by a gunman at Santa Fe High School

A survivor of the mass shooting Friday morning at a Texas high school says the tragedy was not surprising to her given the prevalence of gun massacres in the United States.

“It’s been happening everywhere,” student Paige Curry said after a gunman’s attack at Santa Fe High School before 8 a.m. Friday killed at least eight people.

Among the dead were students and staff, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said Friday morning.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said later Friday that 10 people were killed and another 10 were wounded.

Santa Fe High is located in Galveston County about 35 miles outside Houston.

Asked if there was a moment where she felt as though the shooting could not be real, could not be actually happening at her school, Paige shook her head. “No, there wasn’t,” she said with a small hitch in her voice.

“I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too,” she said. “So, I don’t know. I wasn’t surprised, I was just scared.”

Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle/AP

According to NPR, citing local TV station KTRK, and KPRC, Paige was in theater class not far from where the shooting occurred.

The gunman opened fired in or near an art classroom, according to multiple media reports.

“I heard really loud booms, and I didn’t know what they were at first,” Paige reportedly said.

The sounds of screams told her what she was really hearing, she said. She and others took shelter backstage at the school, according to station KPRC.

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The Texas attack comes just months after a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 people — and, less than a year before that, a mass shooter at a concert in Las Vegas killed 58.

Weeks after the Vegas massacre, a gunman fatally shot 25 people, including a pregnant woman, at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

In a statement later Friday, the Santa Fe Independent School District superintendent, Leigh Wall, called the shooting “an unthinkable tragedy.”

“We are grieving the loss of members of our SFISD family,” she said. “We have received an outpouring of support from across the state, and we appreciate your continued prayers for our students, staff and community.”