Zhanar Tokhtavayeva was just trying to build a better life in America by taking English classes when her quiet day of study became a struggle for survival.
“I thought my life was over,” said the Kazakhstan native, who was among dozens of immigrants caught in the line of fire as a crazed gunman stormed through the American Civic Association in Binghamton yesterday.
Tokhtavayeva was able to rush to a hiding place before the killer — identified by sources as 42-year-old Jiverly Voong — could reach her. She described the spot where she and fellow students found shelter as a place of unbearable tension.
“I was hiding in the storage room with my teacher and some of my classmates,” she told The Post. “I was hiding for about one hour. It was scary, no screaming, just scary.
“I was thinking to go outside first but it was not a good idea and went downstairs. Our teacher told us to go there [the storage room]. I was in shock.
“The teacher told us to be quiet. My whole body was numb. I thought my life was over.”
After the bloody massacre — in which 13 people were killed and the shooter committed suicide — some 40 people hid for safety for hours before cops finally secured the building.
“After the shots, we were waiting for the police,” said Tokhtavayeva, who has been in the US a year. “They [the police] told us to raise our hands. Then we went to the fire station.”
She was among the lucky ones who were unhurt and able to reunite with their families at a religious center near the attack scene.
“I’m happy that she’s alive,” said her husband, Arnur. “But many people are dead.”
Roberta King, 72, a substitute teacher at the school, was among the lost. She was the first of the dead identified by family last night.
A mom of 10, she loved opera and had a doll collection that numbered in the thousands. Her son, Dr. Jeffery King, said he recently asked why she kept working.
“I said, ‘Mom you’re in your 70s,’ ” King said. “She said, ‘What? You don’t think I enjoy working?’ ”
King had been filling in for the regular teacher — identified by colleagues as Elizabeth Hayes — who was reportedly out on vacation.
Like Hayes, student Xirong Yue narrowly escaped being caught up in the massacre when she was called by her employer and told to come to work before class began, her husband John Gavazzi said.
“She the luckiest girl in the world,” he told The Post. “Who knows what could have happened.
Student Alexandr Galkin, 19, an Uzbekistani immigrant, was in class when the bullets began to fly. He fled to the basement where he found shelter with 26 others.
“We were upstairs. We just listened to some shots,” he told The Post. “After the first shot, we just stand up and go. First time, the class started panicking right away. We were just scared. We were waiting.
“We were in a panic. We went to the basement. Everybody was running. My brother was downstairs.”
Once his brother was in the downstairs haven, he finally felt a sense of relief.
“It was good in the boiler room,” he said. “More than 20 [people]. First we were standing, some sitting.”
One of the teachers in the school, Priscilla Pease, huddled with a large group of students, who kept in constant touch with the cops over their cell phones.
“I felt safe in the basement,” she told The Post. “Everyone stayed quiet for the three hours we were down there while staying on the phone with the police who kept telling us to stay calm and remain in the basement until they come to get them.
“When the police came to get us we had to pass one dead body but I didn’t know who it was.”
Hours after the attack ended, some family members were still in a state of panic as they waited for information about the fate of loved ones.
“I still don’t know where my sister is,” said Tony Cejic, who was looking for his sibling, Sova. “I don’t know nothing.”
Omri Yigal told The Post his wife, Dolores, was still among the missing.
He said that he was filled with rage at the killer. “I’m going to have a really hard time trying to keep to the laws of New York,” he said.
A relative identified one of the wounded victims as Long Huynk, a student at the school.
“We saw my brother. He got shot a couple of times,” the relative said. “Doctors had operated on him and I haven’t spoken to him yet.”
The whereabouts of the victim’s wife, Lan Ho, was still unknown last, said the relative, who would not give her name.
For some of the immigrant victims of the stunning crime, their close-up look at the dark side may have soured them on the country.
When asked if he still wanted to be a citizen, Galkin told The Post: “I don’t know. Not right now.”
He added, however, that he had some calming plans for when he got home — he was going to “drink some tea.” With Post Wire Services