Parents traumatized after prank game prompts SWAT team response
GLEN MILLS, Pa. (CBS) -- A scare at school happened when a seemingly innocent game quickly took a dangerous turn.
It caused panic as adults and children ran for their lives. Parents say they got the scare of their lives when two games literally collided.
A high school student in the middle of a prank game involving a water gun showed up at a JV lacrosse game.
Parents thought the gun was real. Calls to 911 brought out the Lower Merion SWAT team.
Laura Kuchler listened for the first time to a voicemail she left two weeks on her husband's phone while they scrambled to get 7th and 8th-grade girls to safety after they believed an armed high school student had entered the stands.
"At this point, there were kids running in every direction you can imagine," Patience Egan, a parent, said. "We just followed. We ran down Montgomery Avenue."
Students from Saint Thomas the Apostle were playing the lacrosse game at The Shipley School campus in Bryn Mawr — when the student with the so-called gun appeared.
An investigation later concluded it was a water gun. But there was chaos.
Parents quickly cleared the fields, some called 911 and they made it to a nearby designated safe space.
"When we came out of the black hole that we were sheltering in, and I remember very vividly, I remember a Lower Merion Police officer with an automatic weapon, standing outside," Egan said.
Police say the student with the water gun was playing a prank game not sanctioned by the school where kids run around and fire at each other with water guns.
But investigators warn — it's dangerous, and in this instance, created an emergency.
"It's just so dangerous these days in this climate on many levels," Kuchler said.
Saint Thomas' principal and parents contacted CBS News Philadelphia concerned that the Shipley School had not communicated with them following the incident.
One parent even wrote to the Shipley administration asking for an apology and that they publicly condemn the senior prank game.
The school in a statement wrote:
"On Monday, April 17, the Lower Merion Police Department responded to a security call on The Shipley School's campus. Fortunately, the LMPD determined that there was, in fact, no safety threat. We apologize for any harm caused by this event. From the onset, our focus has been on supporting the well-being of Shipley students, parents, and colleagues as well as communicating our willingness to lend any support needed to the administrative leadership of the other school communities."
Parents at Saint Thomas say the emotional weight and trauma of that day haven't subsided.
"I had a little girl next to me who repeated for like an hour, 'I don't want to die.' Fourth grade, fourth grade, I don't want to die, I can't die, I'm too young. I just kept hugging her and I said 'You're OK, I have you safe. I'm not going to let anything happen to you.'"
No charges were filed in the incident, according to police.