Connecticut school shooting: Heroes emerge in aftermath of tragedy
ROBERT MACPHERSON/AFP/Getty Images
Mary Ann Jacob, a library clerk at Sandy Hook, tells
reporters how she calmed down 18 crying and confused fourth-graders
squeezed into a storage room a lie for the sake of survival. "We told
them it was a drill, so they knew what to do," she said.
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Amid the horror of the Newtown elementary school massacre, stories of heroism are emerging.
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Victoria Soto, 27, teacher
The young teacher died trying to protect her Grade 1 students.
“In our eyes, she’s a hero,” her cousin Jim Wiltsie told ABC News. She reportedly hid students in a closet and cabinets before telling the gunman the children were in the gym.
“She was trying to shield, getting her children into a closet and protect them from harm. And by doing that put herself between the gunman and the children and that is when she was tragically shot and killed.”
Dawn Hochsprung, 47, principal, and Mary Sherlach, 56, psychologist
Hochsprung and Sherlach were in a meeting with school therapist Diane Day when they heard gunshots. The two women leapt out of their seats and ran toward the shooter, recalled Day.
“They didn’t think twice about confronting or seeing what was going on,” she said. Both were shot and killed as they lunged towards the gunman.
Hochsprung charged the gunman “in order to protect her students,” said superintendent Janet Robinson.
According to a friend of Sherlach’s husband, she had been preparing to retire at the end of the year.
Kaitlin Roig, 29, teacher
Kaitlin Roig, a Grade 4 teacher, protected her students by barricading them in the class bathroom.
She helped some climb onto the toilet so they could all fit and pushed a storage unit in front of the door.
“I don’t know if (the gunman) came in the room … I just told them we have to be absolutely quiet,” she told ABC News. “If they started crying, I would take their face and say it’s going to be OK. Show me your smile.”
Maryrose Kristopik, music teacher
Maryrose Kristopik, a music teacher for all grade levels, barricaded herself and 20 students in a closet. She used instruments like xylophones to block the door, according to a report in the Daily Mail.
“I told them that I loved them. I said there was a bad person in the school. I didn’t want to tell them anything past that,” she said.
The group said a prayer at the suggestion of a student and remained safely in the closet until exiting together a short time later. “I did what any other teacher would have done,” Kristopik said.
Abbey Clements, library clerk
The gunshots reverberating outside the library sounded as though the chairs set up for a school concert were falling over, recalled Clements. But a glance out the door revealed the horror unfolding.
“When I poked my head out the door and saw the custodian running to the front of the building I realized they were shots,” she told a reporter from The Independent.
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She and two teachers grabbed two children from the hall and pulled them into the room. “We went into lockdown, which meant that I ran to get the keys and told the kids to sit in the place where we practised for emergencies.
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It turned out that locking the door — part of the lockdown procedure — had an inherent risk: the door could only be locked from the outside. For a “scary” moment she had to reopen the door and stick her hand back out to lock it.
With files from Star wire services
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Victoria Soto, 27, teacher
The young teacher died trying to protect her Grade 1 students.
“In our eyes, she’s a hero,” her cousin Jim Wiltsie told ABC News. She reportedly hid students in a closet and cabinets before telling the gunman the children were in the gym.
“She was trying to shield, getting her children into a closet and protect them from harm. And by doing that put herself between the gunman and the children and that is when she was tragically shot and killed.”
Dawn Hochsprung, 47, principal, and Mary Sherlach, 56, psychologist
Hochsprung and Sherlach were in a meeting with school therapist Diane Day when they heard gunshots. The two women leapt out of their seats and ran toward the shooter, recalled Day.
“They didn’t think twice about confronting or seeing what was going on,” she said. Both were shot and killed as they lunged towards the gunman.
Hochsprung charged the gunman “in order to protect her students,” said superintendent Janet Robinson.
According to a friend of Sherlach’s husband, she had been preparing to retire at the end of the year.
Kaitlin Roig, 29, teacher
Kaitlin Roig, a Grade 4 teacher, protected her students by barricading them in the class bathroom.
She helped some climb onto the toilet so they could all fit and pushed a storage unit in front of the door.
“I don’t know if (the gunman) came in the room … I just told them we have to be absolutely quiet,” she told ABC News. “If they started crying, I would take their face and say it’s going to be OK. Show me your smile.”
Maryrose Kristopik, music teacher
Maryrose Kristopik, a music teacher for all grade levels, barricaded herself and 20 students in a closet. She used instruments like xylophones to block the door, according to a report in the Daily Mail.
“I told them that I loved them. I said there was a bad person in the school. I didn’t want to tell them anything past that,” she said.
The group said a prayer at the suggestion of a student and remained safely in the closet until exiting together a short time later. “I did what any other teacher would have done,” Kristopik said.
Abbey Clements, library clerk
The gunshots reverberating outside the library sounded as though the chairs set up for a school concert were falling over, recalled Clements. But a glance out the door revealed the horror unfolding.
“When I poked my head out the door and saw the custodian running to the front of the building I realized they were shots,” she told a reporter from The Independent.
-
She and two teachers grabbed two children from the hall and pulled them into the room. “We went into lockdown, which meant that I ran to get the keys and told the kids to sit in the place where we practised for emergencies.
-
It turned out that locking the door — part of the lockdown procedure — had an inherent risk: the door could only be locked from the outside. For a “scary” moment she had to reopen the door and stick her hand back out to lock it.
With files from Star wire services
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