BRUNSWICK, Ga. — For John Swarbrick, it was a routine morning.
“I just gotten off of my morning route school bus driver and was taking my usual nap, and my wife came in and woke me up and said there was a shooting at Apalachee [High School], and the girls are in lockdown and hiding in the classrooms," Swarbrick told First Coast News.
The Swarbricks are from Barrow County, but recently moved to Glynn County. From their home in Brunswick, Swarbrick's wife, Carol, was on the phone with her daughter.
“Who was freaking out because she's getting these, all these texts from her," John Swarbrick said.
The text messages were from one of the couple's grandchildren to her mother, as a gunman started shooting.
"Every time I read it, I get teared up because I can only imagine," John said. "I mean, you can hear the fear in her text. I'm really, really scared. I love you."
In their family group chat, the girls texted their parents when police arrived and described hearing more shooting. One of the teens said something hit her classroom door.
The Swarbricks said their granddaughters are okay. Two students and two teachers were killed in the massacre Thursday.
“When we went to school in the 70s and early-80s, we never think about that, come and go in school," John Swarbrick said. "We would go as kids. I mean, young kids. We'd go out and, and play all day and so, the streetlights came on or whatever and then we know we go home, we never thought about. You know, all this stuff that's going on these days. You can't, you can't send your kid somewhere without supervision."
The Swarbricks said they’d like schools around the country to look at installing steel doors in their classrooms to help keep children safe in the event of an active shooter.