Grazed by bullet, a victim looks forward

Virginia Tech junior Katie Carney , who was shot in a hand and grazed on the temple Monday when a gunman stormed into her German class and opened fire, is among the lucky ones.

She is expected to recover from her injuries and plans to stand as the maid of honor at her sister's wedding tomorrow , according to her brother, Danny, a financial adviser in Kittery, Maine .

But the ordeal is not over for his 21-year-old sister, who now faces recovering from witnessing such bloodshed and mourning the friends and a beloved professor who were gunned down just a few feet away from her.

"The professor who she was crazy about just went down like a sack of rocks," Carney, 27, said in a telephone interview yesterday as he prepared to fly to Virginia. "She caught a glimpse of him as she was heading out of the class and he was stone cold still lying on the ground. She's pretty certain the kid sitting in front of her was killed."

She told her family that the gunman, later identified as Virginia Tech senior Seung-Hui Cho, walked into the classroom and fired at students for at least a minute. Carney ducked behind her desk and put her left hand to her head, deflecting a bullet that pierced her ring and pinky finger s .

When Cho walked out, Carney and a male student shut the door and leaned against it. Almost immediately, Cho tried to get back in, but two other students joined the effort to prevent his reentry .

"It would open a couple of inches and they would smash it back shut," Danny Carney said. "It was just this brutal game of tug of war. Then he started firing shots from outside the door."

The bullets penetrated the door and flew over the heads of the students, but no one in the room was injured further.

Katie Carney, who remained at Montgomery Regional Hospital yesterday in Blacksburg, Va., could not be reached for comment. Dr. Demian Yakel , an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital, said it was possible Carney would be released today.

Her brother said she is still too upset by the experience to speak with reporters.

"She just talks all day to police officers and mental health experts," Carney said. "She's just so worn out."

And the effects are rippling into her family. Her parents, who live in Northern Virginia, have been constantly at her side in the hospital, where they have seen some of the distraught relatives of the dead. Her mother has bonded with the mother of another student, who was injured when Cho shot her during French class.

"I'd say more than anything else, it's just an overwhelming sense of relief," Danny Carney said. "It's relief mixed with sorrow and grief for the other people."

Katie Carney's father has had trouble sleeping. Like his daughter, James Carney was shot in the hand and grazed on the temple by a bullet, in an incident 27 years ago when he was a New Jersey police officer, Danny Carney said.

"He just sounds so drained," Danny Carney said. "I've been telling people this week has been going by so slow. I've literally not been able to stop thinking about it."

His other sister, Amy, 24, said she has been trying to cheer up her youngest sibling with jokes.

"We're just trying to cope," she said in a telephone interview. "As the days go by, it gets a little bit easier, but I don't think it'll ever be easy."

Amy Carney's fiance is in the Army and is bound for Iraq in a month, but she still momentarily considered canceling her wedding. Her sister insisted it go on.

"She told me she wouldn't miss it for the world," Amy Carney said.

Raja Mishra of the Globe staff contributed to this report from Blacksburg, Va. Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.