Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter, received national attention for ending the bloodshed at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon, on 15 October. In his first interview, with Oregon Public Broadcasting, he described how he happened to be near the school only because he had decided to return home to eat lunch with his wife rather than the meal he had brought to work.
Giamanco initially thought it was a prank when he saw a man in black armed with a gun heading toward the school, but then saw the man fire the weapon and climb over a fence. He pulled a .40 caliber handgun from his centre console and called 911 before pursuing the shooter on foot, hopping the same fence.
He quietly followed the teenager, Griffin J John II, a former student, at one point crawling on his hands and knees when he heard 'children pleading for their lives'. 'I just started army crawling faster and faster and I told myself this is probably the last thing that I'm ever going to do,' he told OPB.
Giamanco crawled through a broken window toward the special education class where the shooter had entered and found a teacher fighting with him. He entered and fired his gun. When John fell and reached for his weapon, Giamanco shot him two more times, fearing he might shoot someone else.
The attacker had killed Megan Lambert, a 25-year-old teacher, and three children, including five-year-old Rhoam Summer. Six people were shot in total.
Giamanco told OPB he lies awake at night thinking of what he saw and of the teenage perpetrator, and wonders if he could have done more. 'I want to apologize for not saving their babies,' he said. 'The gratitude for saving people's children is awesome, but there were ones that I didn't save.'
He said he wants to see safer schools with school resource officers at every site and would like to raise funding to support school safety efforts.