Students and witnesses recount a chaotic scene, inside and outside Dawson College in Montreal, when gunfire erupted. Their accounts for CTV News come shortly after several people were taken away in ambulances, and before any official word came down about what happened.

Ali Hussein -- student

He was pointing the gun at the top of the stairs because he saw people running up the stairs and then he shot right at us and we all jumped and ran the other way.

He almost hit me by an inch. He hit the wall and a piece of the wall chipped and fell on the floor.

I thought it was a fake gun at first, I thought the gun was joking around and then I saw a lady lying on the floor and she was bleeding all over ... and then I knew it was for real. That's when I got my stuff and started running the other way.

Cecilia Katan - student

I'm a student at Dawson, and I was just getting out of class when it all started. I wanted to head downstairs, but noone was moving. I heard someone say 'I think someone has a gun!'

I couldn't believe that this could be happening, so I kept looking down the short flight of stairs and saw people crawling on the floor, trying to get around a corner.

Then I saw a man crawling backwards, holding a girl (who I now believe might have been wounded). Just then, I heard three gunshots, and everyone started to run, screaming.

I followed the crowd down an emergency staircase, and all I could think of was to get away from the school.

I had the image of the students I saw crawling and those cramped behind the corner with such terrified looks on their faces. It was so traumatizing... the scene kept repeating in my head, and my heart was going crazy.

Zina Irwin - Eyewitness

I live .... directly across from Dawson College.

I came home for lunch (I'm a student at Concordia)... and heard lots of people screaming around 1 pm. I looked out my window and dozens of students and staff members were exiting the building. Many were in tears, many running for safety.

For the last couple of hours there have been armed policemen crouched among the parked vehicles along Sherbrooke. I saw a couple hiding behind the trees in Dawson's yard.

One man exited the building after most people and police ... asked the man to put his hands on his back, to empty his pockets, lift up his shirt, remove his jacket.

Eventually they spoke with him for a while before releasing him with the others.

I am very, very scared. I am confined to my apartment and my apartment building. For over an hour, it sounded like policemen were on the roof.

Ryan George - student

I'm a student at Dawson. I was just coming out of class on the fourth floor when I saw everyone running to the emergency exit. People were yelling "Someone got shot!"We ran out of the school and there was a huge crowd outside the school. There was a guy sitting on the curb and he was bleeding from the stomach and some police were helping him out.

The look on his face was just shocked.

All of a sudden people leaving the school started screaming and sprinting away faster and it was just chaotic.

We ran into the Pepsi Forum and the police locked down the building.

Robert Soroka -- teacher Dawson College

At a quarter to one I was in my office, preparing for class and I heard shots. I looked out the window and saw a police officer with his firearm drawn.

I proceeded to go down the hallway with a couple of other teachers and basically what we did was try to keep students in the classrooms.

As time progressed we heard more shots ringing out and it was always multiple shots, it was never just one or two, it was several shots. And we just told everybody stay in the room.

From my office I saw the police officers working on an injured person and basically a lot of running around.

The shots seemed to be from the second-floor atrium area. From what I've heard from eyewitnesses, from the students that where it happened.

We saw somebody shot in the neck. We saw a couple of people being taken away but we don't really know anything.

For many of the students and the teachers we were just in emergency mode and we were just really working on adrenaline. We were just working to make sure everybody was safe.

Alyssia Shiwdayal

A friend and I were at the second floor cafeteria and we both heard this one large noise, thinking it was a joke, and that someone was playing with firecrackers.

But then it clicked to me that the noise was too loud and was a gunshot. Then about eight shots followed.

I screamed to my friend to "run" and that someone was shooting something, and we ran up the escalator and we looked at the school's entrance and saw the gunshots, and blurred figure holding the gun and smoke everywhere and the smoke was getting closer and closer.

Everyone was screaming and running and my friend and I ran into a corridor on the third floor where the professors offices are. The professors were unaware about the situation

About 20 other female students were with us. The professors took about five students in each office and called the security and police.

About 40 minutes to an hour later, we were evacuated with the police who were very tense telling us to run out of the school with our hands in the air and led us far from the school.

The students who were with me in the professors office saw a man, they described as a tall, dressed in black with long black boots and a long riffle.

Adam Perez -- student

I was on the seventh floor. The entire staff was stuck up there. No one came to really warn us. Our first warning of the incident (came from) phone calls and text messages.

We were stuck in there about an hour, an hour and a half.

The whole thing's pretty scary. It's all so surreal, everything that has happened so quickly. I've never had this many phone calls in my life.

Seeing blood on the floor, seeing bullets in the walls and shattered glass leaving the school, realizing the reality of the situation, it's really, really frightening.

Tarek Azen - eyewitness

I live across the street and .. I was standing there when people started coming out. People were screaming, crying, hands in the air. Pretty much chaos.

There were maybe four or five people that were carried out on stretchers, ambulances, carried away. There are people here that are worried, crying about people that might still be in the university.

Mark Kojima - Student

I was near the cafeteria ... and I heard a few shots go off and then I saw a huge stampede of people coming my way and basically I got pushed out of the school with that entire stampede.

After that we were on Westmount Square and another stampede started. Because from what I heard the shooter went up in the square and then came out where we were all standing so another stampede happened.

I had a few friends that were in the cafeteria and had to stay there for about 20 minutes because the cops wouldn't let them leave.

I talked to some friends that have been on cellphones with kids that are actually still in the school that are under desks.

Michel Boyer - Student

I saw the gunman who was dressed in black and at that time he was shooting at people. I immediately hit the floor. It was probably one of the most frightening moments of my life.

He was shooting randomly, I didn't know what he was shooting at, but everyone was screaming get out of the building.

I'm 19 years old and to have everybody that you love flash before you in that single moment thinking that you're going to get shot creates a ripple effect and you feel it in your heart and your ears are just ringing.

Words cannot describe the emotion that you are going through.

Everybody was in tears. Everybody was so worried for their own safety for their own lives.