18 hours ago
Aussies Share The Reasons For High School Lockdowns
Once in a blue moon, the evacuation or lockdown siren gets blasted in your Aussie high school classroom and you have to spend a ungodly amount of time baking in the sun on the oval or being fatally quiet inside.
It's peak drama and for the rest of the day there's theories floating around about what happened and why.
But what causes these siren-blaring alerts? According to the r/AskAnAustralian subreddit, it's a whole lot of things.
"A guy dressed in all black with an axe."
"He was on his way to a Halloween party and stopped by cause his little sister wanted to see his costume."— u/frangelica7
"1997, The Kill List."
"It named dozens of kids at all four schools in the local area. The list was found in the boys change room. Everyone locked down for a day, some kids didn't come to school for over a week. Cops were everywhere, talking to everyone. It was super exciting with loads of speculation of who was on the list and why." — u/TheRamblingPeacock
"A truck carrying chemicals caught fire directly outside the school gate."
"It was at lunch, and I was playing footy on the back oval when all of a sudden you could hear screaming and chaos. Looked towards the school and hordes of kids were running away from the buildings, and all you could see was pink. I tried to run towards the school to find my younger bro thinking I was a hero, but a teacher chased me and grabbed me. We didn't know if it was smoke or fumes or what, but to a kid in Year 6, it looked like the apocalypse."— u/sincsinckp
"A big swarm of bees on the oval."
— u/kdavva74
"A horse broke loose from the neighbour's paddock onto our oval."
"They sent everyone back to class early. Our teachers were hopelessly outmatched because that bastard wasn't going to be corralled by anyone. Our PE teacher was really running that day." — u/CanLate152
"Some mum came into school during lunch with a hammer and her kid — wanting to talk to the principal because her kid was recently expelled."
"The mum got tackled by a teacher and the kid kicked the principal in the nuts."— u/paddyc4ke
"Two lockdowns in two years, because of wild animals."
"The first time it was because a brown snake escaped from the canteen bins during lunch and they needed us all inside so they could get a snake catcher in. The second time was because a kangaroo got onto the oval and got aggro with this kid and they needed to get rid of it — the kangaroo, not the kid." — u/Illustrious_Point231"We had one because an aggressive dog was running around the yard right when we were supposed to be going to lunch. Had to stay in until the council came and caught it (which took quite a while)."— u/HappiHappiHappi
"One girl went to the bathroom by herself, and turns out there was a man in the girls' bathroom."
"Thankfully nothing happened as she ran straight away. A week later, the school had a massive fence installed around the entire perimeter. After that, there was a lot more security measures in place and you could NEVER got to the bathroom by yourself." — u/izzieforeons22
"Someone let off a fart bomb in an assembly."
"We all had to sit outside before getting lectured by the principal." — u/AnnualReindeer2621
"We had a stabbing at lunchtime."
"The perpetrator had fled into the bush around the school. We had absolutely no lockdown procedures until after I finished school, but they did ring the 'emergency assembly' bell. They just spoke a bit and sent us to our next class." — u/AshamedChemistry5281
"Men fleeing from police would run down the train line that went behind our school."
"One went past until home time, which was loads of fun." — u/PleasantHedgehog2622
"An arsonist burned half the school down."
— u/jasonizz"Something similar happened at a school near me — the students had to attend other schools while theirs was rebuilt."— u/BigMikeOfDeath"We had a someone torch the school library. It made a mess, but unfortunately for the idiot that did it, he was caught within days, and he was a student trying to destroy his academic records (which were stored in a secure area of the library — pre-computer days). His records remained undamaged, he just ruined a lot of books and the building."— u/Glenn_Lyrca
"The corner store down the road was robbed at gun point."
"All three schools that were in walking distance were locked down. The news that night said that the firearm used was a non-firing replica." — u/Practical-Skill5464
"An argument over a bench, which escalated."
"This escalated and somehow led to people people from outside the school coming onto the grounds." — u/Misterkillboy
"Fake bomb threats, because one student didn't want to go to their class after lunch."
"Payphones were pretty scarce around the school after that."— u/Saturnia-00
"There was a tsunami off somewhere in Asia."
"We were at the beach doing PE (lived and went to school right near the beach). Noticed some waves bigger than normal but nothing too crazy. Got back to school and we were in lockdown and on alert because of the tsunami and the potential for it to get to the school." — u/First-Memory-9153
"The nursing home down from the school had a former Bikie* boss for a patient."
"And he got out. I don't remember his name, it was almost 10 years ago."— u/F14D201*ICYMI, "Bikie" is an Aussie term referring to a member of a motorcycle gang.
"A student brought a gun and set himself up on the second story balcony."
"This was 1993 in Adelaide. We ended up locked in the gym for the afternoon then got evacuated in small group."— u/Frumdimiliosious
And finally, "The Shit Bandit."
"Some unknown student spread shit over a bunch of railings and stairways. Unsure if it was from a human but it was a copious amount. So they locked us down to clean it." — u/unhingedsausageroll "At my school, someone scooped shit out of the toilet, barehanded, and streaked it across the walls of the toilet. As in, the whole room, not just the cubicle."— u/ExaminationNo9186
How did your school make headlines?
