PARENTS have spoken of their "sheer terror" in the moments after a Wagga school was forced into an emergency evacuation for a bomb scare yesterday.
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At about 11.30am, staff at Sacred Heart Primary School received a recorded message claiming a bomb had been planted at the school.
Staff and students at the school, as well as from the Aspect Riverina School on the same site, were immediately evacuated.
Police declared the call a hoax after sweeping the area and students and staff returned about 12.15pm.
But it was a terror-fuelled hour for mother Justine Brentnall, who tried to phone the school after hearing second-hand there was a bomb threat.
“There was no answer because they had been evacuated,” she told the Advertiser.
“There’s this small window where you just expect the worse. I just cried.”
Jackie Forbes, whose six-year-old daughter Abbey attends Aspect, went into shock when she saw the story broke on social media.
“You just don’t expect it,” she said. “I would never have thought it would happen in Wagga.”
She praised the staff and thanked paramedics who allowed kids inside the ambulance to distract them.
Sacred Heart parents were notified via a mobile app, while parents of Aspect received a phone call.
Junee High School was also subjected to a bomb threat but students were at a swimming carnival.
More than 30 other schools around Australia reportedly received a similar threat today.
Sacred Heart assistant principal Sam King said it was a relief the threat was a hoax and praised the quick action of staff.