BILLINGS — A Billings Senior high wrestling coach described the frightening scene inside the school in the minutes after a student stabbed a teacher in a third-floor classroom Tuesday night.
"It's a little scary because you know, you want the safety of the kids, right? You don't know who's in the building. It was late afternoon, but there was plenty of activity going on," Coach Wade Austin told MTN News Wednesday morning.
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The incident happened at 4:23 p.m. and involved a male math teacher who was stabbed on the third floor in his classroom by a female student.
Austin was among the many people inside the building when the incident took place as the Broncs were hosting Billings West in a crosstown dual.
"We didn't know that anybody got hurt," Austin said. "We didn't know that anything was going on in the building."
Austin said it was business as usual in the gymnasium, with the mats set up and athletes preparing to compete. Matches were scheduled to start at 5 p.m.
"Somebody came in the gym and said we were on lockdown," Austin said. "Nobody knew why or anything like that."
Eventually, the matches were delayed and eventually canceled. As word spread, law enforcement and first responders lined up on Grand Avenue.
Related: Teacher, student suffer stab wounds during altercation at Billings Senior High School
An orchestra concert was also canceled, and many students were in classrooms around the school preparing for finals, which are scheduled this week. Within minutes, safety drills became reality.
"I thought that the faculty did a great job of getting things shut down and getting people out of the hallways or sheltering them in place in classrooms," Austin said. "Like Drivers Ed was just down the hall, and they were in a classroom. They were doing that in a lot of places once they identified where people were at."
Details remained limited regarding the incident, as MTN awaits Billings police and school district officials to confirm what happened. On Wednesday afternoon, Superintendent Erwin Garcia said both the student and teacher should recover.
"I care for the well-being of both individuals in this situation," Garcia said.
Garcia did confirm that the teacher involved was a male math teacher and that he was stabbed on the third floor in his classroom after regular school hours. The district is not confirming if the 18-year-old student who is accused of attacking him was his student. No cameras are inside classrooms at Senior High.
According to several parents, the teacher ran out of his classroom after the stabbing and into another classroom down the hall, which was full of students.
Garcia said police are still investigating how and why this all happened.
"I'm not aware of any relationship beyond the relationship of a teacher and a student," Garcia said. "The investigation will shed more light. My message for that teacher is to focus on recovery. I know that this teacher has a family and people that care about him."
Billings police told MTN that more information will be public as the investigation moves forward.
It's an event that will leave a lasting impact on those involved, as well as both the students and staff. Austin said it'll be crucial to provide support.
"There's nothing we can do to change the situation," Austin said. "But we can definitely help them through the mental portion of it."
