Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Tearful teachers recalled acts of courage by their students amid the hellish aftermath of the Parkland school massacre in testimony at killer Nikolas Cruz’s sentencing trial Wednesday.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teacher Ronit Reoven testified that her pupils comforted each other while huddled in a quaking mass as the sounds of Cruz’s shots drew closer during the Feb. 14, 2018 massacre.

“The kids were on top of each other and hugging each other and holding each other,” she told the jury. “We were trying to hush each other, there was some whispering. The shots got louder and louder.”

Cruz, armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, then shot into her classroom, unleashing clouds of dust and debris, said Reoven, recalling how she peeked over her desk to survey the room when the volleys faded.

“At that point I started to hear the whimpering and the moans and groans of the kids who were shot,” she testified. “One student began begging for water.”

With several kids bleeding profusely, Reoven used a baby blanket to tie a tourniquet on one injured girl with the help of another student.

“I knew I had to do something to try to help the kids who were injured,” she said.

Reoven then saw another teen, Carmen Schentrup, lying motionless on the floor.

“I went close to get a better gauge and she wasn’t moving and she was just laying there,” she said. “Just laying there still and there was no response. Face down. Her head to the side and hair just covered her face.

“And I knew that she was probably gone.”

Teacher Ivy Schamis, meanwhile, told jurors how the sudden eruption of gunfire threw her class on the 1936 Olympics into a panicked frenzy.

After first hearing the explosions outside in a hallway, Schamis said Cruz then fired directly into her classroom through a door window.

“It came right through that glass panel and was just shooting everywhere,” she testified. “It was very loud. Very frightening. I kept thinking about these kids who should not be experiencing this at all.”

Despite the horror unfolding around them, Schamis said students courageously attempted to calm each other and remain quiet as bullets strafed the room.

She described in detail how one student, Nicholas Dworet, 17, had just excitedly answered a question she posed in class just moments before the chaos began.

Dworet and classmate Helena Ramsey were killed in the assault.

Schamis broke down in tears when prosecutors showed her pictures of the deceased teens in court.

“That’s my girl, Helena Ramsey,” she said. “Nicholas Dworet. Handsome boy.”

Teacher Juletta Matlock said she first thought the sounds outside her classroom were part of an active shooter drill.

“We had a training in the auditorium in January,” she said. “And they said there would be a drill forthcoming of an active shooter. Or some kind of a code red drill. I thought it was that drill. This is it. They’re trying to catch us off guard.”

But Matlock said the violent reality hit after she heard screams from a neighboring classroom.

Cruz, 23, has previously pleaded guilty to murdering 14 students and three staffers in the rampage.

Jurors will decide if he receives a life sentence without parole or the death penalty. The sentencing phase of the trial began Monday and is expected to last several months.