A student and reality television star who narrowly avoided a deadly mass shooting at an Ivy League university has issued a powerful plea for change in America, stating the country 'can't just let this be repeated over and over.'
A Harrowing Escape and a Call to Action
Eva Erickson, a 25-year-old PhD candidate in engineering at Brown University and a recent contestant on the CBS show Survivor, spoke to TMZ on Tuesday following the weekend's tragedy in Providence, Rhode Island. The shooting left two students dead and nine others injured, with the perpetrator still at large.
'Something needs to change,' the Minnesota native stated emphatically. 'I mean, the fact that this keeps happening, over and over to students across the country, is insane.'
Erickson, who identifies as the first openly autistic participant on Survivor, stressed that while she is an engineer and not a policymaker, the need for action is undeniable. 'I've just wanted to go to school and learn and have this community and be safe - and now that's been taken from me,' she said. 'Nobody should have to experience that.'
'So Eerie': A Campus in Mourning and Lockdown
Erickson described a chilling twist of fate that likely saved her life on Saturday. Feeling unproductive in her lab, she made an uncharacteristic decision to go to the gym in the afternoon. She left the campus building where she worked just five minutes before the shooter entered.
'I am so so extremely lucky,' she reflected in an earlier Instagram post, marking herself safe. She was later locked down in the university's athletic centre with her hockey teammates.
Returning to campus the next day felt 'so eerie,' she told TMZ. The door she had exited was boarded up and surrounded by crime scene tape, with a heavy police presence remaining. With the gunman still not captured, the community remains on edge, and many students have left campus to seek solace with their families.
'Everyone is trying to get the hell away from Brown to get home to their families, where they can feel safe,' Erickson observed.
Information Vacuum and a Nationwide Problem
While praising Brown University for its communication about campus services and security, Erickson noted that students are being kept in the dark about the investigation's progress. 'We know about the same as anyone else who just Googles the thing,' she said. 'We just know that the suspect is still out there, and that's so hard for everybody.'
Her personal experience has crystallised into a broader demand for national reform. 'There needs to be big changes taken and that needs to start happening now,' Erickson asserted. She connected the Providence tragedy to a relentless pattern of gun violence affecting educational institutions across the United States.
Erickson is currently working remotely from her apartment, stating she is not spending time on campus. While she personally feels the shooter is 'long gone,' she acknowledges the widespread fear. 'I know a lot of people are still on edge about the whole thing, knowing that he's out there.'
The shooting at Brown University has reignited the fierce national debate on gun control, with a survivor's voice adding poignant weight to the argument that the status quo is untenable for America's students.
