*We will never know what Dave Sanders saw and heard.  We only know what 
he did.  It would have been easy to stay in the faculty lounge, even to 
lock himself in the faculty bathrooms as other teachers did, out of 
harm’s way. 

But Sanders instinctively ran toward the kids.  “Dave simply did what 
he did every day at Columbine,” says Joe Marshall.  “He thought of the 
kids first.” 

Sanders burst into the cafeteria at full tilt.  Already shouting for 
everyone to take cover, he leaped onto one of the tables to command 
more attention.  A coach knows how to do this.  “I’ll never forget the 
look on his face,” says teacher Judy Kelly.  “He took charge.” 

The killers entered the cafeteria and opened fire.  Thanks to Sanders, 
not a single person died there.  The students had turned over tables 
and ducked behind them for shelter.  When the killers moved on, Sanders
swiftly herded about 200 students out of the cafeteria. 

“Many teachers did heroic things in the school,” says Cheryl Lucas, 
another Columbine teacher in the cafeteria.  “But Dave was the one most 
responsible for saving lives.  He got us moving.” 

Next he sprinted up three short stairs to Columbine’s second floor, 
possibly seeking more students to warn.  Instead, halfway down the hall 
to the library, he encountered one of the killers. 

Senior Adam Foss had just poked his head out from a nearby room.  “I 
heard the gunshots, and a teacher yelling at everyone to get down,” he 
says.  “ I saw the gun shoot, and Mr Sanders fell into the lockers. 
Even then, he was still trying to get some kids out of the hallway.” 

(Amby Burfoot in Runner’s World, September 1999)