It was just another morning today as Virginia Tech senior Josh Bell walked to his morning class from his off-campus apartment.

He passed a large construction site, so he didn't think twice about the loud noises he heard. Then three ambulances passed him, and he realized something wasn't right.

Bell estimates he was 75 to 100 yards from Norris Hall during the shootings there and that he heard 10 to 20 gunshots.

"I honestly thought it was some kind of hammer pounding or machinery involved with [the construction site]," said Bell, who's from the Richmond area. "At the time, it didn't register that it was gunshots."

Once he reached his class building near Norris Hall, students were rushing inside, spewing varied stories, trying to piece together the events unfolding across campus.

Some students said they crouched close to the ground or were frisked as they were leaving Norris.

Others said they passed by bodies while trying to exit.

"After I got into [Randolph Hall] and got an idea of what was going on, that was when I realized that what I heard approaching was the gunshots from the incident," Bell said. "I stayed long enough to get the sense that I didn't want to be near this."

He walked home.

Several Tech students from different parts of the campus interviewed by The Times-Dispatch today reported a chaotic and confusing morning as students in locked-down classrooms and dormitories were trying to piece together the events outside their doors through cell-phone calls from other students and news reports.

The victims' names have not yet been released, but among those injured is Colin Goddard, son of Christian Children's Fund President Anne Lynam Goddard. Anne Goddard, who is on her way to Blacksburg, said she has talked with her son and that he is in good condition but will require surgery today.

Many students reported to their morning classes unaware of the early shooting at 7:15 a.m. at the West Ambler Johnston dorm.

"We're just kind of confused. We don't know what going's on," Heather Harris, 19, a freshman from the Philadelphia area said this morning from her West Ambler Johnston room. She lives on the third floor and said the shooting happened on the fourth floor.

"None of the [cell] phones are working. We're watching the news right now. We keep checking our e-mails," she said.

Katharine Kamer, a 21-year-old senior who graduated from Mills Godwin High School in Henrico County, said she was in Patton Hall, which is close enough to Norris to look out of the window and see it.

She got out of class right before 10 a.m. and was told to not leave the building because of a shooting in Ambler Johnston. From the second floor of her building, she could see police crouched around Norris but not much activity. A student next to her said he had heard gunshots and saw people jumping from windows at Norris.

Kamer said one girl who jumped from a window ran into her building and was being treated for a back problem.

"She was crying, and they were telling her to be calm," Kamer said. "They were telling her it would be OK."

Kamer, who like other students was told to stay away from all windows, was allowed to leave about 12:15 p.m. Police escorted her to her off-campus apartment, which she shares with Bell.

"At first it was really confusing as to what was going on," she said. She had seen police cars by Ambler Johnston earlier, but it was calm "so when they said it was a shooting, I was confused."

Kelli Erk, an 18-year-old freshman who graduated from Deep Run High School in Henrico, also reported to her 8 a.m. class unaware of what was happening. There, she met her roommate, who said she saw a student being carried on a stretcher but didn't know why.

"They didn't cancel classes after the first incident, so people went to morning classes not knowing that this was going on," Erk said from her locked-down dorm room as a campus loudspeaker continued to tell students to stay inside. Late this morning, she still didn't know if students would be evacuated.

"It's just really scary and unsettling to have something like this happen on your campus when you walk around every day feeling very safe until something happens," she said.

Julie Wash, a 19-year-old freshman from Henrico, echoed the sentiment of the distressing mood on campus.

"It's very tense. Everyone is very upset and anxious. A lot of the students are in their rooms and have their doors closed."

Rachel Hall, an 18-year-old freshman business student from Maryland, echoed those sentiments.

"Everyone is upset. We're trying to hang together and stay inside," she said about 1:30 p.m. "The campus is deserted outside."