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Hero Teacher And 'Brave Freshman' Came To Aid Of Student Shot Twice During Santa Clarita School Shooting
“I don't think my kids, especially, should have to process this," Saugus High School choir teacher Katie Holt said after she and a student helped a wounded girl who ran into her music classroom.
Stories of heroism are emerging after Thursday’s horrific and tragic school shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California.
A 16-year-old boy took a gun out of his backpack and began shooting just as classes were starting Thursday morning in the campus’ quad. The shooter killed two students and wounded three others before he shot himself in the head.
One of those injured students ran into a music classroom where choir teacher Katie Holt took cover from the gunfire along with about 30 to 40 students, NBC News reports. The injured student told Holt she thought she had been shot.
"I investigated with my phone flashlight, and yes, she had been shot," Holt said. Holt then bravely left the room to get both a first aid bag and a gunshot wound kit. Gunshot wound kits, intended to decrease the bleeding of a gunshot wound, are often sold with school shootings in mind.
"She was shot in her side, and then she told me she thought she had been shot, as well, in her arm," Holt explained to NBC News. "I looked, and she had been shot in her shoulder, as well — but I only had one gunshot wound kit."
Holt tried her best to dress both wounds as best she could. She said a "really brave freshman" named Tyler who was in the room with her assisted in dressing the injured student’s wounds. Tyler applied pressure to the girl’s shoulder wound while Holt addressed the teen’s injury in her side.
The girl has since undergone surgery and is expected to recover, according to NBC.
Holt told NBC that not only was the injured student "really strong," but she was cracking jokes as her wounds were getting dressed, stating that she was going to start getting home-schooled.
"I don't think I should have had to process this,” Holt told NBC News. “I don't think my kids, especially, should have to process this."
She added, "Long term, I hope that something can be done, because I think that a really big change needs to happen. I held a bleeding child today in my classroom, in my music classroom."
