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WARNING: Some of the details in this story are disturbing. Discretion is advised.
The routine of a regular school day at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in B.C.’s Peace Region was shattered on Feb. 10 when alarm bells rang out shortly before 1:30 p.m.
Duncan Mckay, who is in Grade 11, was playing badminton in gym class and said at first, he thought construction had started up nearby.
“The one teacher went up the stairs and looked around and he saw some bodies on the floor,” Mckay told Global News.
“Mr. B. was staring out the doors of the gym to see if he could see anyone and he was shot at; they hit his pant leg, did not hit him.”
Mckay said he was trying to keep everyone calm as best he could. A Grade 7 student had also come running into the gym and she was hysterical.
“Everyone was supporting each other, trying to help out the Grade 7 student that joined our class as she was freaking out, crying,” he said.
“Everyone was trying to keep her composed, calm her down.”
Grade 12 student Zachary Taylor was in the mechanic’s shop at the time. One of his classmates spoke up and said he could hear bangs.
“We’re wondering who’s hunting close to town and a few minutes later, you hear all the alarms going off,” he told Global News.
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“We closed all the doors and all went to the back thinking it was just a drill, a random Tuesday.”
However, he realized something was going on when their teacher told them to pick up big heavy tables and push them against the door, barricading themselves inside.
“I was communicating with a few of my friends in the library where it was happening and they seemed devastated and that’s when it hit me that this is happening,” Taylor said.
Mckay said they were locked inside the school for two hours and 40 minutes before they were escorted out with their hands up.
“That’s when I saw the shots in the gym door and looked around and saw upstairs windows riddled with bullets, some blood on the floor in front of the stairway,” he said.
Mckay said he knew two of the victims and one was his little brother’s best friend.
“I’m just lucky he stayed home that day. It was his class,” he said.
Taylor said he was in the library about half an hour before the shooting started and he has been going over events in his mind about what could have happened if he had not left.
“Our community, we’re close together, everyone knows each other. I’ve been around these people since I was two years old,” he said.
Mckay said councillors have been offered to everyone affected by the tragedy but he has not seen one yet.
“I keep having flashbacks in my mind about the gunshots going off, keep hearing them over and over and over,” he said.
Eight people were shot and killed in the Tumbler Ridge shooting.
Five of them were students, one was an educator and two have been identified as family members of the shooter.
The shooter was also found deceased from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said, bringing the total deaths to nine.
Glenn Miller, a local Canadian Junior Rangers leader, told Global News that he knows some of the victims, describing them as “great little kids.”
“It hurts,” he said. “You can’t eat, you can’t sleep and the question always comes up: why, why in a nice little place like this?”
Miller said he never could have envisioned something like this happening in their small town.
“People say look in the world, it happens, but when you’re in a place like this, you know everyone, see everyone and it doesn’t work that way,” he said.
Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka said on Thursday that it feels like the community is coming together as one big family.
“We’re going to need support long-term. What long-term means, I’ve asked for six months,” he said.
“This tragedy will definitely be around and talked about for months and maybe years to come. This community is strong enough that we are going to change that vision.
“We need to make sure when we come out of this, we’re not known for eight people passing away, mom and her son and students and a teacher and the shooter taking their own life… We need to make sure the world realizes it’s not that tragedy that marks what Tumbler Ridge is about.”
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
