Eric Decker has lived it, hidden in a dark library closet, quarantined by fear. The Broncos wide receiver has felt it, that feeling to which the students at Arapahoe High School can now relate. Sadly, they are not the only students who can relate.

“We didn’t know what to think,” said Decker, who hid for 45 minutes after the 2003 shooting of two students at his Minnesota high school. “Every girl was crying, every guy was trying to stay calm, and when they came and got us, we had to go across the street to the elementary school with our hands up. You see snipers on the top of the buildings, it’s just surreal. That moment, you’ll never forget.

“It changes your life in a second.”

In the days after the Dec. 13 shooting at Arapahoe High, Decker recorded a video message to the school’s students.

It was shown at an assembly, in the cafeteria and on the school’s website. He spoke of unity, of grieving, of perseverance. Decker is a Bronco, but to many, he’s now an Arapahoe Warrior.

“I just felt a connection,” said sophomore Mitchell Pennetta, who, as Decker does for the Broncos, wears No. 87 for the Arapahoe football team. “It’s been kind of hard to go through this — you never think it’s going to happen to your school, but then it does. And to know that somebody else, especially someone as famous as Eric Decker, has gone through something similar, it felt comforting.”

Feeling connected

Happiness comes cautiously these days at Arapahoe. But when the principal announced at an assembly that she had a video message from Decker, “Of course, all the girls are freaking out (because of his looks),” senior Grace Marlowe said, “and all the guys are freaking out for different reasons.

“It was nice because a lot of people are trying to relate to us — and it’s really hard, and I get that — but to have someone really get it, to have made it though something (similar) and to offer words of encouragement and advice? It was very welcomed and very needed at that time. It was also kind of like another note of optimism for all of us — he’s doing great, so we’ll be OK. We’ll move on from it, and it’s not going to be what people remember about us.”

On Dec. 13, Decker was driving home from Broncos headquarters, listening to the news on the radio — a student had shot another student at Arapahoe.

“It brings back flashbacks,” he said. “The library. Running out of the cafeteria. The gymnasium. You start praying for people.”

Decker recalls the voice of his friend, as the two fled the cafeteria to the library, ran past the gymnasium and spotted the chaos: “That’s my brother!”

On Sept. 24, 2003, a student shot and killed two other students at Rocori High School in small-town Cold Spring, Minn.

Decker was connected to both victims — one was a former teammate on the baseball team, the other the brother of his close friend, Jesse Bartell.

Decker was eating lunch with Bartell in the cafeteria when there was a sudden announcement. Code red. The two started sprinting, and that’s when Bartell saw his younger brother, Seth, sprawled on the gym floor. The gunman, a disgruntled student, had also shot classmate Aaron Rollins.

Decker and 11 other classmates hid in the library closet. Meanwhile, gym teacher Mark Johnson had heard a loud sound, which he at first thought was a light fixture falling to the floor. If only it had been. Johnson came into the gym and saw bloodshed at the hands of a boy. Freshman John Jason McLaughlin stood there, armed, “and I started walking toward him,” Johnson said. “He raised the gun at me and I stopped, took out my right hand and I just said, ‘No!’ I’ll be darned, he discharged the remaining shells on the gym floor and dropped the gun.”

Why did Johnson walk toward the gunman when so many people would run away?

“It’s just one of those things I just reacted to,” he said. “It happened so quickly. I don’t know why I started walking toward him, but I did. And once he raised the gun at me, that’s when I stopped. So I don’t think I became a threat to him; that’s the only thing I can think of. But he could have (shot me); he had seven more shots in the gun at the time. I grabbed the gun right away, and then I grabbed him.”

Soon after, Johnson tried to revive Decker’s friend Rollins.

“I can’t get his eyes out of my mind,” Johnson said. “We were doing CPR on him. But that didn’t work. He was already …”

For 1 minute and 55 seconds, the Arapahoe students were transfixed on Decker’s words.

Welcome distraction“

You never imagine being in that situation,” the Broncos star said in the video. “But through tough times like this, you’ve got to stick together — be it a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen or a person to be able to hug if there’s ever a grieving moment. And understand that everyone grieves at different paces.”

At Arapahoe, the Broncos matter. Denver is Broncos Country, sure, and the city is clamoring for the kickoff to Sunday’s AFC championship game against the New England Patriots, with a berth in Super Bowl XLVIII going to the winner. But for the members of the Arapahoe family, as the student Pennetta explained, “It’s just a big deal to sit and watch our home team do well. It helps take your mind off all the events, all the news, all that kind of stuff.”

For many, No. 18 is their favorite player. But at Arapahoe, No. 87 is their warrior.

Benjamin Hochman: bhochman @denverpost.com or twitter.com/hochman