NATCHEZ — A campus lockdown at Mississippi State University and rumors of a man with a gun turned a normal day of classes into a day local MSU students say they will never forget.

Trinity graduate and Mississippi State freshman Kyler Parks was in class at approximately 10 a.m. when she and other students received a text message alert from MSU that an active shooter was on campus.

“There was a kid in my class who saw the Maroon Alert before I did … and he just went completely white,” Parks said.

Parks and classmates alerted their professor to the situation, who instructed them to sit on the floor against a wall away from windows. Parks said she and her classmates texted their families and friends to check in and try to get more information.

MSU issued an all-clear after police apprehended the suspect — freshman Bill Nguyen of Madison — who made threats to kill himself and others sparking the campus lockdown and active shooter alert.

Parks said the university kept students aware of where the suspect was by sending text message alerts and social media.

“At one point, they said he was at Lee Hall, which is across from the building I was in,” she said.

Parks said she and others waited 10 or 15 minutes after the all-clear to go outside where they saw several police cars and ambulances.

“I started walking, and we heard this noise that sounded like a gunshot … and all of a sudden, there was this huge panic, a huge mob of people trying to run into this building near where we were,” Parks said. “We were running and someone got knocked in the head and passed out. It was just a mass panic. We didn’t know what was going on, and we thought there was someone with a gun near us.”

Parks and other students sought shelter inside an auditorium, but when she went inside, Parks said students had blocked doors in a room they were hiding in because it did not have locks.

“I just started banging on the door and screaming, ‘Let me in, let me in,’” Parks said. “Once they realized it was a student, they let me in.

“There were people piled in every corner. There were no professors, just a roomful of teenagers, and we didn’t know what to do.

Without locks on the doors, Parks said some students in the room took it upon themselves to ensure the safety of the group.

“Some of the bigger guys they were saying, ‘We’ll block the doors, y’all sit in the corner,’” Parks said.

After 15 or 20 minutes, Parks said, the students spotted people in the hallways and figured it was safe to come out.

“That’s when I ran back to my dorm,” she said.

Parks stayed in constant communication with her parents, John and Malan Parks, who were watching the news from Natchez.

“They were the ones who really kept me calm through the entire thing,” she said. “My dad, he just kept saying, ‘Stay calm, and stay where you are.’ It really helped calm me.”

Police say they did not find a gun and do not believe shots were fired. Parks said she learned Thursday afternoon that the sound she and other students heard following the all-clear was a result of nearby construction work.

When she got back to her dorm, Parks checked in with her friends, including fellow Trinity graduate Cena Mullins, who was in her dorm when the active shooter alert went out.

“I was actually getting ready to leave for class,” she said.

Mullins said she checked in with her room adviser, who asked everyone to go inside their rooms and lock their doors. Mullins said she kept in touch with other students through a sorority group chat and texted her family updates.

Mullins’ mother, Tammi Gardner, heard about the active shooter alert via text from a friend.

“The first thing you think is, ‘Well, that’s not true; that’s just a rumor,’” Gardner said. “When Cena texted me the alert she had gotten from the school, I knew it was for real, and my heart just sank. It scared me to death.”

Gardner said when news spread of the situation, many in the local community reached out to Gardner to check on Mullins.

“You really forget about how close the community is sometimes,” Gardner said, choking back tears. “I had so many calls and so many texts from people making sure Cena was OK. It was just very heartwarming.”

Mullins said she stayed in her dorm until students were told it was safe to move about campus.

“I just can’t imagine being out there when it all happened,” she said.

The incident was an experience, Parks said, she will never forget.

“We just kept thinking, ‘This is not happening here; this is not going to happen to us,’” she said. “It was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me.”

Even with recent shootings in the news, John Parks said it is not something for which a parent can ever really prepare themselves.

“You hear about these things all the time, but when it happens at a place where your child is, it really puts it into a different perspective,” Parks said.