OAKLAND, CA (CNN/KPIX) -- A nursing student at Oikos University in California is being called a hero after Monday's deadly shooting rampage. Her actions may have saved her life as well as her classmates'. She was in a classroom when the shooting began.
Dechen Wangzom says, "Even the ringing of the doorbell makes me nervous." Surrounded by her family and friends, Dechen is still visibly shaken. She says, "It's so hard to forget the scene we saw today its unforgettable."
She had just finished taking a test in her nursing school class when she heard this. She says, "It's like a firework boom, boom 3 or 4 times I hear that."
Eight other students and the teacher were frozen with fear. Dechen sprung into action as the gunman was firing just feet from the classroom. She closed the door and locked it. She says, "If I didn't lock the door I think I would be dead today."
She turned off the lights and told the class to keep quiet as the gunman came to the door and fired shots to try to get in. She says, "We were just praying to god to save us today."
Dechen's class waited in silence for 30 minutes. She painfully listened as one of the victims, a receptionist, cried out for help. Dechen says, "I just hear her voice asking for help again and again there was nothing we could do."
Police credit her for saving the lives of her classmates but it's hard for her to call herself a hero. She says, "Just told my instinct to help myself."
Her husband Tashi Wangzon says, "Definately she is a hero but 7 people lost their lives they were all innocent but in my eyes she is of course a hero."