A Closer Look At Littleton

Most of the country is all too familiar with what Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold did when they walked into Columbine High School on April 20. Fellow students Makai Hall and Val Schnurr were both shot in the ferocious attack. They've never spoken in depth about that day, until now. Two Littleton victims tell their frightening stories to 48 Hours Correspondent Cynthia Bowers.

Makai, who is in the class of 2000, recognized Dylan Klebold immediately. They sat next to each other in French class last year.

"I was shot with a shotgun from a distance, and no more than seven pellets went into my right leg," he says. "At one point I was lying on the floor after I'd gotten shot just hoping they wouldn't come back and, you know, shoot us in the head. That was my worst fear."

Val, a senior, was shot several times in the chest, abdomen and arm.

"The teacher ran into the library and started screaming for us all to get under the tables," Val remembers. "I just saw them reloading the guns again and I didn't know if they were going to let me go or if they were going to shoot me."

Denver police officer Binh Tran was on duty nearby when he got the call.

"It took about 10 minutes for me to get down there," says Binh. "They were shooting at us from this window...when I got there."

They were still shooting when Val and Makai, despite their serious injuries, managed to get themselves out of the library.

"I knew I had to get out of there because I was so hurt," says Val. "I got out. And there was a police car waiting."

"Someone yelled 'run,' and it felt like I flew," says Makai. "As soon as I got behind the police car that was parked broadside to the school, I got behind it and I laid down. I just hurt. It was the most pain I've ever been in."

"All of a sudden I look down, and I noticed all these kids were shot up," remembers Binh. "One of them was shot in the face; a lot of them were shot in the legs and the chest."

Binh and his fellow officers got the kids into police cars and rushed them away from the scene. He evacuated about 20 students, and one of them was a badly injured Makai Hall. He spent two-and-a-half hours in the operating room, and was discharged from the hospital three days later.

"I look at myself in the mirror and sometimes I get very angry. You know, having to look at myself with scars every day," says Makai.

Val was one of the most seriously injured survivors at Columbine, and she still carries two bullets lodged inside her abdomen, as well as many scars.

"There are times when I'm having a lot of pain," says Val. "Sometimes it hurts so bad I'll double over.">

But that's not crippling her spirit or her faith, which she says gives her the strength to move on. Will she ever forgive Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold?

"I struggle with that every day. I think that I'm almost there," Val says. "And I know there will be a point where I'll have to forgive them. I have to. You know, I can't move on with my life if I hate these people the rest of my life."

Ironically, it's her faith that almost got her killed. The shooters asked her if she believed in God, and Val answered yes. "I knew if I was going to die, I'm not going to say I don't believe in God, because that's not true. We need to learn tolerance and try to accept people for who we are. I think if we learn to accept each other for who we are, you're not going to see stuff like what happened."

Makai's search for meaning is taking him on a voyage. He's going to Holland, a country that has known nothing like Columbine.

"I am on my way to Amsterdam to speak at a youth conference for peace to change some things and maybe open some eyes," says Makai. "Excluding people and making fun of them and just attacking them is going to lead to more trouble."

Makai and his classmate Peter Fossberg are the guests of honor at an international peace conference sponsored by the United Nations of Youth. They are telling their story to young people from places like Kosovo and Sierra Leone: places which have seen far more violence than Littleton. He's doing that with a new program he's helping start at Columbine. It's called Ambassadors of Peace and its goal is to teach acceptance, unity and understanding.

"I want youth to be strong and united in thoughts and ideas and work together to stop violence," Makai continues."I want to do something to make people feel that they belong and that there's people in the world that love them."

Val is graduating, and subsequently leaving Columbine High School. But she's not leaving it behind.

"I think that it'll always be with me," says Val. "It'll stay in my heart and having scars gives me a remembrance every day. There's part of it engraved in your heart and in your mind."