FORT STEWART, Ga. — An unarmed soldier tackled the gunman who opened fire at Fort Stewart before five others leaped into action to subdue the shooter and render lifesaving medical care to victims, officials said Thursday.
Decisive action by Sgt. Aaron Turner and his fellow soldiers quickly brought Sgt. Quornelius Samentrio Radford, the suspected shooter, under control and helped get victims to the hospital in time to save their lives, officials said.
“One of the soldiers tackled the person,” Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll told reporters.
“So just think about this: They were unarmed and ran at and tackled an armed person who they know knew was actively shooting their buddies, their colleagues, their fellow soldiers. Another soldier jumped on top of the person to subdue them until federal law enforcement was able to arrive.”
Turner is an automated logistical specialist from Farmington, New Mexico, the Army said.
Master Sgt. Justin Thomas, a senior enlisted maintenance supervisor from Kingwood, Texas, then helped “Sgt. Turner restrain the assailant, working as a team to prevent additional harm during the dangerous situation,” according to an Army statement.
The Army credited 1st Sgt. Joshua Arnold, Staff Sgt. Melissa Taylor, Sgt. Eve Rodarte and Staff Sgt. Robert Pacheco with rendering immediate medical care to the wounded. Taylor is a career counselor while Pacheco and Rodarte are both combat medics.
Arnold was in a conference room on Wednesday when the late morning silence was broken by gun shots.
“I stood up, walked out toward the hallway, kind of saw some hazy smoke, had a flash of someone running past my area and looked down the hallway,” recalled Arnold, a senior enlisted maintenance supervisor. “I went toward the smoke.”
That’s when he came upon the first victim and applied pressure to the wound before Taylor arrived seconds later to render medical treatment to that wounded soldier, Arnold said.
That freed up Arnold to keep searching the building, where he found two more gunshot victims and called for medics.
“So three medics were on these soldiers within minutes,” Arnold told NBC News. “They did great.”
Secretary Driscoll said these actions were crucial to saving lives.
“We talked to doctors and one of the things that I can say, unequivocally, is that the fast action of these soldiers, under stress and under trauma and under fire, absolutely saved lives from being lost,”…
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