Sawt Falasteen - 'This isn't real': teacher's narrow escape from Austria school shooter

Religion teacher Paul G. Nitsche was working on his own with the door open on the upper floor of the Dreierschuetzengasse secondary school in Graz when the shooting started.

"I heard this bang. And I blocked it out," the 51-year-old told reporters, whose students were elsewhere sitting their final year exams.

It was only when he heard the sound of bullet casings hitting the floor of a corridor outside, that "something snapped inside me" and the realisation dawned, he said.

"I jumped up and thought, that as a teacher alone in a classroom with a possible attacker, this is a very bad situation.

"And I decided to run.

"I ran out quickly through the corridor, which is only a few metres long, and then down the stairs."

It was then that the evangelical pastor saw the shooter in the corridor of the floor below. The sight of him stopped him in his tracks "for a moment".

- 'You try to block everything out' -

"He was trying to shoot the door (of a classroom) open with his rifle.

"He was busy.... and I didn't look around much either... I didn't hang around," Nitsche said.

"And as I ran down the stairs, I thought to myself, 'This isn't real, this is a film.'"

But when he got to the lower floor "I saw a student lying on the floor and a teacher was there, and I knew, 'Ah, this is serious.'"

"As a human being, you really try (to understand what is happening), I know that from my crisis training, but (at the same time) you really try to block everything out," the pastor added.

"I think the emergency services were there a minute or two later, thank God."

What struck Nitsche was the eerie silence that had fallen over the school.

"It was very quiet. Everyone was calm.

There was total silence. No screaming, nothing. That's not what school is like.

"And the emergency services arrived in normal police cars, four of them with bulletproof vests, and then they went in."

Nitsche said it was hard to grasp the enormity of what had happened. What he experienced was just one part of "a mosaic with lots of pieces".

He went back to help comfort students outside the school Wednesday.

- A city in shock -

A large black banner, "Graz stands together", was strung across a fence nearby as Austria's second city tried to come to terms with the tragedy.

Small groups of students, most dressed in black and many of them crying, placed candles at the entrance of the closed school.

Tuesday's shooting is an unprecedented case of deadly gun violence in the usually peaceful Alpine country.

Police said the shooter, a 21-year-old former student at the school, killed himself in a toilet after leaving 10 dead or dying and wounding 12 others.

Police found a "non-functional homemade bomb" during a search of his home. A goodbye letter addressed to the suspect's parents was also recovered, though it included no clues about his motive.

Locals in Graz are struggling to express their shock.

"You can see here how the whole city, probably the whole country is reeling," Michael Saad, a 22-year-old student, told AFP at a candlelight vigil late Tuesday.

Saad was among hundreds gathered at the central square in Graz, many young people, placing candles at the feet of a monument in the square in a sombre atmosphere as people stood in silence.

Many hugged with tears in their eyes, while others talked quietly in muffled voices.

B.Mahmoud--SF-PST