Kristina Anderson was working on an assignment in her French classroom at Virginia Tech when she heard loud gunshots down the hall.

Her alarmed teacher opened the door to see what happened. After looking out, she immediately slammed the door shut and told the students to call 911.

Anderson got on the floor, covered her head with her hands and put her knees under her seat. The gunman walked in and began firing down the rows.

“It was a very, very horrifying experience,” Anderson said. “It lasted about ten minutes of just open fire where we didn’t know if we were going to live or die.”

The shooter came in and out of several different classrooms. When he came back to Anderson’s, he moved more slowly as he looked to see if people were still alive.

“It was just scary, surreal and it’s one of those things you don’t think you’ll go through in college,” Anderson said.

Anderson was shot three times: twice in the back and once in the toe. Her teacher and 11 of her classmates were killed.

The gunman killed 32 students and faculty members in the deadliest shooting at a U.S. university.

Anderson said that day changed her life in many ways and made her think of campus safety more seriously. Six years later, she has become one of the founders of a free smartphone app that aims to aid campus safety, called LiveSafe.

Anderson said that although more and more universities are progressive in making their environments safer for students, what is currently lacking is two-way communication between safety officials and students. The goal of the app, which Anderson wishes she had that day at Virginia Tech, is to provide this communication and make students more proactive in their own safety.

“It’s a very much needed additional tool in the entire toolbox,” Anderson said of the app.

Users of the app can confidentially share information regarding sexual assault, weapons, drugs, mental health and other safety-related issues. Tips can be submitted along with photos, videos and audio tagged with GPS information to help safety officials and investigators form a more complete understanding of the crime.

Once a tip is submitted, it will go directly to first responders based on the GPS information. Tips are viewed on a dashboard monitored by a 911 dispatcher. Different crimes are given different prioritizations, so an active shooting or sexual assault would rise to the top of the dashboard. In cases of emergencies, law enforcement can also send out mass notifications using data or Wi-Fi connections.

Anderson said she believes the smartphone is usually the fastest way to reach someone, as opposed to an email. The app is not meant to replace other notification systems, but add another layer on top of them.

“Students are very comfortable interacting on their phones for a social purpose but also to receive information,” Anderson said.

The app was released in February at Winthrop University in South Carolina and the University of New Hampshire for beta testing. It will be available on the app store in late June. To implement the app on universities, the LiveSafe team must work closely with local law enforcement to run beta testing on campus. The app would be distributed to about 25 to 50 students to see how it functions on campus before its full implementation. If students would like to implement the app on campus, they can contact the LiveSafe team through their website. 

Anderson said she hopes that the app will eventually reach all campuses and communities to improve safety and prevent tragedies such as Virginia Tech.

“If one person doesn’t have to go through life with the same experiences that we did from Virginia Tech … that to me shows growth and progress from Tech,” Anderson said. “That ensures that the students that we lost that day are not forgotten. It shows that we’ve actually learned something from it.”

Karyna can be reached at [email protected].