BEND, Oregon: A teacher wounded in last week's attack on a special education classroom at an Oregon elementary school says she never had a chance to shelter any of the children inside. In a statement issued Wednesday, Becky Drury, 54, described coming face to face with the teenage gunman and being shot at close range before she could close the classroom door. Three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and 25-year-old teacher Megan Lambert were killed in the October 15 rampage at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, carried out by 16-year-old former student Griffin J. John II. Another student was critically injured.
"I pretended to be dead"
Drury, an inclusion educational assistant who remains hospitalized, said she ran to see what was happening, then spotted the shooter and rushed back to her classroom. "I turned to shut the door behind me, but the shooter was already there," she said, according to CNN. "Before I could do anything more, he shot me at close range and I fell to the ground."
Her left hand was nearly severed and her right arm was struck as well. Unable to get up or defend anyone, she said, "I did the only thing I could do, which was to pretend to be dead in the hope he would not shoot me again." She said she was speaking out to correct reports that she had thrown herself on top of a student, which was not what happened. "Accurate, respectful reporting is a truly important service that will help heal the wounds inflicted by that awful day," she said.
A three-minute rampage
Police say the gunman, a former special education student at the school, jumped a fence and shot through the glass panes of the school's locked entrance doors with a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, then went to the special needs classroom, where he fired as many as 15 rounds. The first 911 call came just before 1 p.m. from a driver who said the gunman had shot at his pickup truck; officers arrived at about 1:02 p.m. and found the suspect down inside the school moments later.
Two people intervened. An unnamed teacher threw her phone at the gunman, then tackled him and wrestled with him for the weapon, likely saving lives. Kaylub Giamanco, 36, a father of two students at the school who was on his lunch break, followed the shooter inside with a legally owned .40-caliber pistol and shot him dead. The Associated Press reported, citing a law enforcement source, that the legally purchased shotgun had been bought by the shooter's mother; investigators are still looking into how the teenager obtained it.
The victims
Five-year-old Rhoam Summer was the youngest person killed, and the youngest person ever killed in a deliberate mass attack at a U.S. school, according to his family's attorney and school-shooting researchers, CNN reported. His family has asked the world to draw pictures for him. Two other boys, ages 8 and 11, were also killed; their families asked that their names not be released. Lambert, 25, was working what her family called her dream job: a Bend native and 2023 Boise State University graduate, Silver Rail was her first full-time teaching position, according to USA Today. Seven-year-old Saylor Graham-Poarch was critically injured and is now reported stable, The Sun reported.
A community returns to school
Schools in the Bend-La Pine district reopened Wednesday with dozens of officers at each campus to welcome children back. Governor Tina Kotek thanked the man who stopped the gunman for heroically intervening, and President Donald Trump called him a "great hero" who had "taken care of business." It was the 36th shooting this year on K-12 school grounds in the United States, according to CNN's analysis.
In Bend, the families of three young boys and a beloved young teacher are beginning funerals, while two survivors recover. Drury's plea was simple: report that awful day accurately, so the truth can help the town heal.
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Hitman (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0