Fox News reporter Alicia Acuña was in the midst of covering a shooting at East High School in Denver, Colorado, on Wednesday when she was unexpectedly reunited with her son during a live broadcast.
Acuña had been reporting outside the school where a student had produced a handgun and opened fire, injuring two school administrators.
As she was reporting on the incident, Acuña suddenly saw her son approaching and excused herself from the broadcast to embrace him. “I’m sorry, I have not seen my kid since this all went down,” she said, before continuing with her coverage.
You can watch the moment she was reunited with her son in the video below.
Many were relieved for Acuña and extended their well-wishes to the reporter.
Acuña’s son had been texting her during the ordeal, as well as texting her sister, whose daughter also attends the school. Acuña's niece was hiding in a closet and texting her mother at the time.
The shooting on Wednesday came just over a month after an East High student was killed in a separate shooting near the school. At least a thousand students staged a mass walkout in response to that incident, calling for stronger gun control laws.
Acuña revealed that the victim in the February shooting had sat beside her son in Spanish class, noting that the students "have already been rocked by that" and have had "a pretty tough school year."
The shooter in Wednesday’s incident, a 17-year-old male student, fled the school after opening fire and was later found to have died by suicide, according to law enforcement. The school is closed for the rest of the week.
The incident is yet another example of the ongoing issue of gun violence in the United States, and the impact it has on families and communities.
As Acuña’s emotional reunion with her son shows, even those who report on these events are not immune to the trauma and fear they can cause.
@thekalenallen/Threads
U.S. Mint
