Interview with Ella Seaver, History 150 Spring 2025, Conducted by Lauren Deschenes, March 10, 2025.

Overview:

In this deeply moving interview, Ella Seaver, a survivor of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, explores the long-term personal and societal impacts of gun violence. Now a psychology major at Lafayette College, Ella reflects on how surviving one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history continues to shape her identity, education, and activism.

The conversation touches on trauma, mental health, and resilience, as Ella recounts her blurred memories of that day in first grade; hearing gunshots, hiding in her classroom, and the haunting realization that many of her classmates never made it out. As she grows older, Ella explains how her understanding of the tragedy has deepened, bringing waves of grief, survivor’s guilt, and a growing determination to fight for change. 

The interview also explores how while Ella is often described as “strong” for surviving, she challenges that narrative, explaining that resilience was not a choice but a necessity. Her story is similar to themes seen in other interviews—like young people turning pain into purpose, and the emotional toll of carrying public attention after private trauma.

Historically, the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 marked a pivotal moment in national conversations about gun control. Yet, more than a decade later, Ella’s words illustrate how little has changed, and how new generations of children continue to experience the same tragedies. She calls for stricter gun laws, background checks, and accessible mental health care, not just for survivors, but to prevent future tragedies. Her advocacy, rooted in personal loss, is a powerful call for social change, justice, and compassion.

Biography:

This interview of Ella Seaver is conducted by Lauren Deschenes. Ella and Lauren grew up together in Newtown, CT where the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting took place. They have been best friends for many years and often talk about the effects that Sandy Hook had on themselves and their community. Ella was a first grader at the time of the shooting and experienced it first-hand. Since then she has been a dedicated advocate of gun safety laws and protections in our schools so that this doesn’t continue to happen over and over again. She’s met with legislators and Vice President Kamala Harris to talk about her experience and what she wants to see done to prevent shootings. Ella is now 19 years old and attending Lafayette College as a psychology major. She hopes to become a therapist and impact other peoples’ lives in the way her own therapists have impacted her. 

 

Background Research:

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is the deadliest school shooting in America’s history. There were 26 lives taken. Twenty first grade students and six educators were killed. All the children who survived will forever be scarred by the images of their classmates being shot and killed. The shooter was 20 year-old Adam Lanza. Lanza had lived in Newtown his whole life and went to Sandy Hook Elementary School as a kid. The morning of the shooting he killed his mother who was asleep in their home before driving to SHS. He shot down the glass doors and entered the school. The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, went on the intercom to alert the school of the shooting in progress before being killed herself. The intercom remained on and the sounds of the gunshots were heard by everyone in the building while he was near it. He went on to the classrooms and killed 20 first-grade students before he ultimately shot and killed himself. 

The surviving students were evacuated and their parents waited at the fire station next door, hoping they would be reunited with their children. The following weeks, months, and years have been filled with grief, sorrow, and anger. Protests were held, memorials were held, and organizations were formed in memory of those who were killed. Ben’s Bells, Sandy Hook Promise, and The Catherine Hubbard Sanctuary are just a few of the foundations created to honor those who passed and also raise money to aid the residents of Newtown and advance efforts to stop this from happening to other communities. 

 

Bibliography:

Ray, Michael. “Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Jan. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/event/Sandy-Hook-Elementary-School-shooting. Accessed 16 March 2025.

“Sandy Hook School Shooting”. HISTORY, 11 December. 2013, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gunman-kills-students-and-adults-at-newtown-connecticut-elementary-school. Accessed 16 March 2025. 

Shultz JM, Muschert GW, Dingwall A, Cohen AM. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as tipping point: “This Time Is Different”. Disaster Health. 2013 Nov 11;1(2):65-73. doi: 10.4161/dish.27113. PMID: 28228989; PMCID: PMC5314926.

 

Transcription: 

 

Lauren Deschenes  0:02  

Hi, I’m Lauren deschenes, and I’m here with my best friend from home, Ella Seaver. She is a survivor of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Ella, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself? 

 

Ella Seaver  0:17  

I am Ella. I’m 19. I’m currently attending Lafayette College as a psych major.

 

Lauren Deschenes  0:25  

Um, so can you tell me what you remember from the day of the shooting?

 

Ella Seaver  0:32  

So the day the shooting is a little bit blurry to me, especially the morning prior. Um, I remember that we were supposed to be making ginger wood houses at school, since we were nearing Christmas and holiday break. And then, you know, it kind of started to change when we heard some odd banging sounds. Our principal came on the speaker the intercom and told us to all get to our safe spots. And then after that, we just heard the speaker, you know, drop hit the ground, while more like banging and popping noises continued. As a first grader, we didn’t really understand what was happening, but we could tell that our teachers possibly knew something. They started reading us books to try and, you know, calm us down and keep us quiet. And we were in our classroom for a while until SWAT and police came and evacuated us out, and we were walked down to the fire station that was down the street. We waited there for a little bit until, you know, parents started to come and pick up, you know, their kids.My parents, were some of the first there, because I happen to live quite close to the school. They started to line us up, you know, by grade, by class, and that’s when we all kind of started to realize that there was, there was, like a chunk of the first grade, my grade missing. We didn’t really know what was going on or who was missing yet, but that kind of started to become quite apparent then and then after that, you know, my parents took me home and I opened my the door to my house to be greeted by a bunch of family and friends who were obviously concerned, because they knew that I was at the school. But again, like at this time, I didn’t really know what was going on. I’m not sure if you know any of the adults fully knew either. But I walked in, you know, a ton of people in my house later that day, my older sister and my brother came home because they were at different schools who got let out later than we did. I can remember my sister coming home crying and still feeling really confused as to what was happening. And then a little while later into the evening, we had a family friend that worked for ABC, and that’s when I was set up with my first interview that night, where I kind of talked about what I remembered, and, you know, what I heard, and you know, after that, the rest is kind of a blur in the following, you know, days and weeks later, I remember going to funeral after funeral, and my parents, you know, sitting me down in front of a yearbook, actually, and telling me which of my friends had passed.

 

Lauren Deschenes  4:26  

How was it having to do an interview that day, being so young and not fully understanding and it just happening?

 

Ella Seaver  4:37  

Um, it was kind of conflicting. Of course, I again, like, didn’t fully know what was going on, but I trusted the adults around me, however, like, as I’ve grown older, you know, going back and looking at that interview is honestly quite hard. I, um, because it really is just like a moment frozen in time that you know was it’s just such a terrible time to remember.

 

Lauren Deschenes  5:10  

And from talking with you prior, I know your life before the shooting was already a little bit rocky. Um, can you explain your life prior and how the shooting added to what was already a little bit of a hard time for you?

 

Ella Seaver  5:28  

Yeah, so my family life was already a little kind of chaotic before both my parents had been quite sick when I was younger. My dad had been diagnosed a few years prior with stage four cancer. So we definitely had a lot of experience dealing with, you know, troubling times and trauma. So I think for my parents, it gave them a really good, I don’t know, I guess, almost like footing to dealing with, you know, traumatic situations and, you know, breaking some bad news and taking care of three young kidsthrough something so terrible. But it definitely was just, you know, a continuation of these really confusing and really traumatizing, you know, life experiences that I seem to continue to have.

 

Lauren Deschenes  6:37  

Um, how did the shooting affect you then versus now?

 

Ella Seaver  6:46  

I think then again, just feeling very confused but still obviously sad at the loss of my friends, you know, not fully understanding what you know someone dying meant, or you know what a shooting was. I mean, I was seven years old, so I I barely even knew what a gun was. And then, as I’ve grown older, it definitely has weighed on me more and more, you know, I can understand the gravity of Sandy Hook now, how big of an experience it actually was, how horrible it actually was. You know, I definitely think about what my friends had gone through and just continuing to see, you know what’s happening now in our country, what is continuing to happendefinitely puts a lot more weight on the situation, because, you know, you can’t Escape it right now.

 

Lauren Deschenes  7:59  

Um, from talking with you before, I know that people say things to you sometimes, along the lines of the shooting made you stronger, or you’re so much stronger because of what happened to you. Um, how do you feelslash, react when you hear this?

 

Ella Seaver  8:21  

Um, that’s a tough one. I think in a lot of ways, I understand what people mean when they say that, and, you know, I understand that they mean well, but at the same time, going through something like that and something that you’re forced to, I wouldn’t say, necessarily, makes you stronger. And I think, like in a lot of aspects of my life, you know, I don’t feel very strong, but I think it gave me a lot of resilience in my life to, you know, see that when things are going bad, or when we think something is, you know, just not right. I know how much worse it can be, and I know just to be, you know, thankful for everything that I have in my life. But I think stronger, stronger is a very challenging word to use to describe it.

 

Lauren Deschenes  9:24  

And I think it’s the resilience was sort of; it was forced upon you becauseyou shouldn’t have had to go through that. I think that you would have been resilient either way, because of what your family had been through before that, and then the shooting just like magnified that by like infinity. So it is unfair, but you are very resilient because you.

 

Ella Seaver  10:00  

Yeah, it’s like you’ve been through the worst. Yeah, it’s definitely not a natural evolution to resilience. You’re right, like having something be forced on you. It’s not something that we wanted to live with or something that we wanted to experience, but it was something that we had to so you just have to learn to adapt and to, you know, take on different perspectives to try and get you through. 

 

Lauren Deschenes  10:29  

Yeah, how does seeing other school shootings today happen? Or, how does seeing shootings happen affect you?

 

Ella Seaver  10:42  

It definitely takes a large toll. I know my first thought whenever any shooting happens is, you know, now there’s more kids like me. I remember very clearly reading about the Uvalde shooting and having that one hit very close to home because of how much it resembled Sandy Hook. And, you know, knowing how I’ve felt and what I’ve had to go through, and knowing that other people are continuing to have to go through, thatdefinitely takes a large toll. It’s just a, puts a big reminder every time you see one, and a lot of guilt that you know we haven’t been able to do anything yet, and that it’s still happening, and that, you know there are more kids like me now who are going to grow up living with that type of trauma.

 

Lauren Deschenes  11:44  

Yeah, and can you talk about the guilt that you felt, the difference between the kinds of guilt and why you felt it, and how it was different then versus now?

 

Ella Seaver  12:00  

Um, I think, you know, there’s a lot of survivors guilt, and there’s a lot that I’ve had to work through. I think when I was younger, you know, I had the thought of, you know, why didn’t I do anything? I like, should have tried to do something. And, you know, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to kind of come to terms with the fact that I was seven and there was, there was nothing I could have done as much as I wanted to. So that’s kind of why I’ve turned more to activism, to take that guilt and, you know, transform it into something else, something that is positive and has an impact and can reach other people. 

 

Lauren Deschenes  12:53  

Yeah, um, how has the shooting affected your schooling career?

 

Ella Seaver  13:01  

In a lot of different ways. Obviously, schools have become something that’s less of a safe spot to me. I remember, you know, going through middle school, high school, and being terrified of having a copycat. I, you know, I’m quite jumpy while I’m in school, anytime a bottle drops or there’s loud, you know, footprints in the hallway. You know, that makes me jump, that makes my head turn, and even, like, consciously or unconsciously, whenever I step into a classroom, like my mind goes immediately to Okay, where am I going to sit? I can’t have my back to the door. I need to be able to see it. What’s my escape route? Where can I hide? What do I do to help people, to help get people out? You know, it turns to what’s the worst case scenario, and what can I do to make myself and everyone else safer?

 

Lauren Deschenes  13:01  

 Yeah, and throughout, like middle school and high school for us, when we were in school together, on the anniversaries, there would often be like threats made, like a copycat possibility or a bomb or something. How did that affect you? 

 

Ella Seaver  14:46  

Like, every year having to hear about that, um, I think it always just added another layer of unneeded level of anxiety to that day. Obviously, the anniversary is something that’s very personal, and it’s a day that I, you know, choose to take to remember my friends and the positive parts of them. So when we would get threats or, you know, have to have an evacuation of some sort, it would just be kind of like angering and sad in a lot of ways. Because, you know, haven’t we gone through enough? And I think the worst time I remember Sandy Hook had gotten a credible threat, and they had to be evacuated. And one of my friends had a little brother who was at Sandy Hook, and I remember like her, having that freak out and that fear and just feeling so sad for her, because, you know, we were already dealing with enough on that day, and you know, there’s just another person and another thing that we had to deal with and worry about.

 

Lauren Deschenes  16:12  

Um, changing gears, how was your experience meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris?

 

Ella Seaver  16:21  

Meeting with Vice President Kamala Kamala Harris was an amazing experience. Being able to meet with any official who cares that much is important, but Harris really took it to another level. We could really tell that she actually cared about our voices, cared about our stories and what we had to say. She was extremely attentive and gave us amazing feedback. And she was really someone you could tell actually cared about the change that we wanted to make, she wasn’t, you know, grabbing for a headline or a story or a view of some sort, you know, she really wanted to take what we had to say and put it into action, which I think we all appreciated. 

 

Lauren Deschenes  17:20  

And then kind of piggybacking off of that. How does it feel to be in the spotlight so often because of such a tragic event?

 

Ella Seaver  17:30  

Um, it’s kind of a two a double edged sword. Um, on one side, it’s extremely empowering and gratifying to be able to give back in a way, and spread our voices that can impact other people and, you know, support other people who have gone through the same thing, or try and promote change. I really loved working with the group of students that I was able to over the summer, to try and get our voices out there and, you know, really make people hear what we had to say. But at the same time, you know, it does take away that kind of anonymity and that normalcy that we’ve all tried to reach somehow throughout our lives. Because, you know, I can’t just be a normal teenager walking around campus. You know, I am an activist. I do have my voice out there. That is what you see when you look me up. So it takes away part of the normalcy, but at the same time, I think it gives back a lot. 

 

Lauren Deschenes  18:46  

Yeah, I think it definitely like gives a purpose to part of your life, and that’s such a big part of who you are as an activist, and your way of getting there wasn’t fair. You shouldn’t have had to go through that, but you’ve made it something so empowering and inspiring, and I do see like you’ll come up on my for you page on Tik Tok with like an edit of you. And it’s so weird to see like my it’s like my friend on my Tik Tok page. But part of me is like, I wish she could just fly under the radar and have a normal life. But also, I think, knowing you, I don’t think that you were ever meant to fly under the radar. You’re very much like she has to be heard, and her voice, like, means so much and what you have to say like, it’s it’s always inspiring. So it is definitely a double edged sword, from what I’ve seen too.What do you want to see done in legislation to prevent shootings from continuing to happen?

 

I think the biggest thing that myself and a lot of other survivors always talk about is regulations and bans on assault weapons and military style weapons. These are not weapons that should or need to be within a house or available to an average citizen, they are weapons of war. So trying to crack down on that, make it safer. I want background checks, mental health checks that are mandatory when going to purchase a firearm. I want to try and stop the production of ghost guns. And I think another really big thing for me is the mental health services that should be available to everyone easily, not only for victims or people who have gone through traumas, but also people who are just struggling on their own, to try and get them help before you know, something bad happens, and you know, get them help because they deserve it.

 

Um, I know your mental health has been greatly affected by the shooting. Can you talk about what kind of effects it’s had on you in terms of your mental health?

 

Ella Seaver  21:56  

Yeah, so my mental health has definitely been quite a windy road, especially as I started to grow older and understand the gravity of Sandy Hook and just the state of gun violence in our country.I have been in therapy for quite a lot of my life, even before the shooting. I had been in, you know, like a cancer support group with my siblings for my dad. So it’s always been in and around my atmosphere. And as I started to grow and really understand the magnitude, it really started to weigh on me, the anxiety of being in schools, of seeing other shootings happen, the guilt and depression that comes with, you know, losing people in that way. Andit also it really kind of like, directed me into a passion of, you know, seeing how mental health can affect people and what grave effects it can have on people that, you know, it made me want to become a psychology major. I’m actually planning on being a therapist, because that has been something that’s been so impactful in my life, and it’s a way that I want to, kind of like give back and help people in a way that helped me. I want to specialize in trauma. So it’s definitely been quite a windy road of, you know, going in and out between highs and lows and having, you know, different events in my life really be affected by my mental health and what state I was in between graduating from high school and trying to balance, you know, the happiness of that big event in your life, and also you know the guilt and the sadness that you feel when you’re not walking the stage with all of your friends. I know, coming to college was also kind of a big shock to me, because all of a sudden I was on this campus where, you know, no one really understood, and, you know, no one has that same understanding of the experience that I do, which definitely takes a toll on, you know, relationships and you know, how you interact with people and how you interact with all of your surroundings.

 

Lauren Deschenes  24:46  

Well, thank you so much for letting me interview you, of course. Thank you, Lauren, of course, and everything you had to say was amazing.

 

Ella Seaver  24:58  

Thank you.

 

Lauren Deschenes  24:59  

Bye, bye

 

Ella Seaver  25:00  

Bye.

 

Interview & Transcription Process:

This interview was held over Zoom on March 7, 2025, and transcribed using Otter AI.

Transcription Process:

Transcribing this interview was pretty easy using Otter AI. I had to make a good amount of edits and change the names of who was talking at most parts but it didn’t take long to finish it.