A mother who was on lockdown during the Moncton shootings is sharing the fear she experienced when she could not reach her stepson in Ottawa.

Joanne da Costa says she went into panic mode Wednesday as she watched the events in Ottawa unfold. She says her stepson works in the nation’s capital and she couldn’t reach him for several hours.

“We were just frantic. We didn’t know who was shot,” says da Costa. “We didn’t know if it was continuing, if he was alright, if he was in the building, if he was locked in, if he was even at work.”

She eventually received a text message that he was OK, but she says the incident brought a rush of memories back from the shooting and subsequent lockdown in Moncton in June.

Da Costa says she was on lockdown for 30 hours after three RCMP officers were killed and two others injured by a lone gunman on June 4.

“We knew what they were going through to some extent and it gave us that anxious feeling all over again,” she says.

A similar event occurred in Ottawa on Wednesday, when Cpl. Nathan Cirillo was fatally shot at the National War Memorial by a gunman who then raced to Parliament Hill, where he was killed in a gunfight in the halls of the Centre Block.

Moncton resident Carol Cormier says the shootings in Ottawa and Moncton are different, but share a common thread.

“It brought back that same kind of horror, like ‘not in my country, not Canada,’ but it was even more so,” says Cormier.

Nancy Garon, a psychology professor at Mount Allison University, says Moncton came together after the shootings, and the same could happen on a national level after the events in Ottawa.

“When there is a tragedy, people tend to group together, which is a natural human response and a good response to deal with stress,” says Garon. “It is actually very healthy.”

“I think we as Canadians are going to be strong and stick together and see this through,” agrees da Costa.

Garson also says people in Moncton who experienced the lockdown firsthand may be better equipped to deal with the incident in Ottawa because they have lived through a similar situation.

With files from CTV Atlantic's David Bell