UT stabbing victim asked student to call his mom as he was dying

AUSTIN -- (KXAN) -- When Lori Brown received a phone call from her son, Harrison Brown, Monday afternoon, the person on the other line wasn't her son, but rather the voice of a frantic girl who said he had been attacked.

“And she said, 'Are you Harrison's mom?' and you could tell there was something bad going on at the other end,” Lori said. The UT student on the phone didn't know Harrison, she just happened to come into the gym and turned back toward the door. “She was coming out of the door — he was holding his hand over his chest and there was blood coming out of his chest. He had held the phone out and said 'call my mom.'”

Lori never got a chance to say bye. Police say Harrison had been stabbed in the chest with a hunting knife in an attack that left three other students injured.

Lori says just three minutes earlier, she was having a normal conversation with him about his day. “He was filling me in on what he was doing, he said he had just played basketball, he always called me 'mama,'” Lori explained. “He was gonna get something to eat at a food truck.”

Harrison's family members traveled from their home in Graham, Texas to Austin immediately after his death. Lori traveled to Austin with Harrison's brother, John, who is also a Longhorn.

A grief counselor ultimately put Lori in touch with that UT student, who went to visit Lori at her hotel room. “She knew I wanted to meet with her… This young lady — she was a freshman also — she came to see me at my hotel room and it meant the world to me. It was so comforting that she was able to do that for me.”