Virginia Tech shooting victim finds her voice - and a cause

By Greg Esposito

BLACKSBURG

Kristina Anderson can finally talk about the worst day of her life.

Some moments are difficult to recall, and some memories she won't share - things she wants to keep for herself. But she has discovered that talking about April 16, 2007, is a way to gain control.

The Virginia Tech senior can rattle off memories that stick in her mind from the morning Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people before turning the gun on himself.

Waving to a friend as she and Colin Goddard came into French class late and took their seats in the back of 211 Norris Hall.

The shot that would have killed her had it been three inches lower.

The cold and sleepiness that overcame her as, shot twice in the back, she leaned against a chair.

The police officer standing over her, changing her triage status from "yellow" to "red."

Talking about that day has helped her heal. And Anderson said she feels compelled to help others by talking about the days since, as she reflects on the tragedy and continues her emotional recovery.

"I learned a lot from this," she said, "A lot of life lessons."

She's passing on those lessons - advocating both practical safety measures and personal reflections about life - through the Koshka Foundation. She and her family started it in late 2007 to promote school security, remember those lost on April 16 and inspire others facing challenges.

Koshka means "little kitten" in Russian - a term of affection Anderson's mother, Inessa Anderson, still uses for her. Kristina Anderson was 8 when they moved to America from Ukraine in 1995.

"I'm only 21. People have been through much worse things," she said. "I still have my whole life ahead of me. But if I can give someone a little bit of inspiration, you know? Because something bad will happen to you."

Anderson gave her first public speeches about the shootings during a busy spring break in March that took her to New York, Washington, D.C., and Finland. She spread the word about her foundation and shared her thoughts on school safety with law enforcement officials, school leaders, CEOs and American Red Cross workers.

Anderson's safety message is a bottom-up approach to security. Training students and faculty how to respond to emergencies - everything from dorm fires to physical attacks - will empower them to react and prevent further tragedy.

She said she thinks Tech officials should have alerted people sooner about the first shooting in West Ambler Johnston Hall on April 16 and is glad they've taken measures to address that issue, such as installing electronic message boards. But warnings aren't very effective if those receiving them don't know how to respond.

"If this happened again, honestly, I don't know what would be different at Virginia Tech," she said.

The other half of her message is an appreciation for life and of each day's value. This includes obvious things people take for granted, such as a loving family, she says, as well as more mundane moments.

"I'll be in traffic and I'm, like, so happy," she said. "I'll sit there and think about how grateful I am to be able to do this."

Anderson had emergency surgery the day of the shootings to remove her gall bladder and most of her left kidney. The damage to her core affected her balance.

A bullet also had ricocheted into her foot. An avid runner, she has progressed from standing to walking to jogging. She still has occasional stomach problems and has to monitor her diet because of the loss of her gall bladder, but otherwise she is fully recovered.

The route to her emotional recovery, however, wasn't so direct.

It didn't begin in earnest until December 2007 - some eight months after Cho killed her professor and 11 classmates in that French class. Back at Tech for fall semester, she was happy to be with friends and turned down offers to speak with counselors.

She had moments of anxiety and moodiness, was scared of loud noises and didn't like being alone or in the dark. Still, she thought she was doing OK until one Sunday night in December.

She found herself sobbing in her Blacksburg apartment. She still has no idea what triggered it. She thought she was losing her mind.

Soon after, she started meeting with a Blacksburg therapist - Jane Keppel-Benson.

Anderson cried during every therapy session at first. She'd show up late because she hated going.

Keppel-Benson made her talk about the shootings and used the analogy of a trash can overfilled with garbage to explain to Anderson why she needed to talk.

"It never occurred to me that I was secretly still, like, holding back all these feelings and emotions that were never expressed until I had this like - basically - this breakdown," she said.

The therapy became the highlight of her week, and her friends notice she's in a better mood after a session.

Anderson is a good-natured, optimistic person who's quick to laugh - attributes her stepfather, Eric Anderson, said she's always had.

"She's always been a very brave, very generous, very diplomatic, very courageous and very loving person," he said. "When someone goes through such a crisis, their true colors get to shine brighter."

Anderson was Kristina Heeger at the time of the shootings but has since taken her stepfather's last name.

Kristina Heeger gained fame not just as a victim but as the student shown being carried out of Norris in one of the iconic photos of the tragedy. The image was one of the first things Anderson saw when she awoke from surgery. She was on CNN.

In addition to her work with the Koshka Foundation, Anderson is president of Students for Non-Violence at Virginia Tech. The group was formed in affiliation with the school 's Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention, created after the shootings and led by Jerzy Nowak. The Tech horticulture professor lost his wife, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, in the shootings. She was Anderson's French teacher.

Work with her foundation and the new student organization has been wearing on Anderson as the anniversary draws near.

She will be prominently involved in several of the university's memorial events, as she was last year.

Anderson said she realizes her work has led people to identify her with the shootings, but there are some questions she doesn't appreciate. She doesn't use Cho's name and doesn't like questions about whether she's forgiven him, become religious or blamed God for what happened.

Other people have admitted to Googling her after hearing about her experience. One person, doubting that she was shot, asked to see her scars. She prefers the term "victim" to "survivor" because every person who experienced the shootings was a victim.

"It does really bother me when people use words like 'lucky' or 'thankful.' I mean, I am thankful and I was lucky but I also faced the reality of it," she said. "And I saw people around me who were not as lucky. And so I can never attribute anything - I mean, those words almost imply that I did something. And I didn't do anything. The complete randomness of it is still something I can't get over."