Two people were killed and 17 others were injured on Tuesday morning in a high school shooting in rural Kentucky, according to authorities.

The accused shooter, who is in custody, is a 15-year-old student at Marshall County high school, where the shooting took place. Fourteen of the injured sustained gunshot wounds, while the others were hurt in the ensuing commotion.

The Kentucky state police commissioner, Richard Sanders, said the alleged attacker was armed with a handgun. The teen will be charged with murder and attempted murder. Police did not release his identity, nor did they describe a motive.

“This is a wound that is going to take a long time to heal. For some in this community will never fully heal,” the Kentucky governor, Matt Bevin, said.

According to officials at a midday press briefing, some of the wounded were flown by helicopter for medical treatment. One student, a 15-year-old girl, died on the scene. A second, a 15-year-old boy, died at the hospital.

Mitchell Garland, who owns a business near the school, said he rushed outside when he heard about the shooting and said he saw students running, crying and screaming.

Garland said his own son, a 16-year-old sophomore, jumped into someone’s car and sped away, then made his way to his father’s office.

The area’s congressman, the Republican US representative James Comer, called the shooting a “senseless and evil attack” that “horrifies us all”.

It marks the first fatal school shooting the country has seen this year. It’s also the second school shooting in as many days. On Monday, a 15-year-old girl was injured after, police say, a 16-year-old classmate shot her in the high school cafeteria in Italy, Texas.

Tuesday’s shooting happened as students gathered in a common area just before classes began. Sixteen-year-old Lexie Waymon said she and a friend were talking about the next basketball game, makeup and eyelashes when gunshots pierced the air.

“I blacked out. I couldn’t move. I got up and I tried to run, but I fell. I heard someone hit the ground. It was so close to me,” Waymon said. “I just heard it and then I just, everything was black for a good minute. Like, I could not see anything. I just froze and did not know what to do. Then I got up and I ran.”

Waymon did not stop running, not even when she called her mother to tell her what happened. She made it to the McDonald’s, her chest hurting, struggling to breathe. “All I could keep thinking was, ‘I can’t believe this is happening. I cannot believe this is happening,’” she said.

It was chaotic outside the school as parents and students rushed around trying to find each other, said Dusty Kornbacher, who owns a nearby floral shop. “All the parking lots were full with parents and kids hugging each other and crying and nobody really knowing what was going on,” he said.