Two American servicemembers were awarded medals for bravery after they disarmed a suspected terrorist aboard a Paris-bound high speed train.
Childhood friends Alek Skarlatos, a member of the Oregon National Guard, and Airman First Class Spencer Stone, say they heard a 26-year-old Moroccan national loading a weapon in the bathroom. The man emerged with a rifle slung over his shoulder, the friends said.
Their quick thinking in that moment may have stopped the potential terror attack as Stone rushed and tackled the gunman.
“I told him to go, and he went,” Skarlatos told French media. “Spencer ran a good 10 meters to get to the guy.”
Skarlatos and Stone received the assistance of another childhood friend, American college student Anthony Sadler, Jr.
“The three of us beat up the guy,” Sadler told CNN. “In the process, Spencer gets slashed multiple times by a box cutter and Alek takes the AK [47] away.”
Stone grabbed the rifle and smashed the muzzle into the suspect’s head, Peter Skarlatos, Alek’s brother, told CNN.
British passenger Chris Norman helped tie up the gunman, while Stone helped stop the bleeding of a passenger who was wounded in the throat until paramedics came, Sadler said.
Stone put “pressure to the neck wound before [the passenger] bled out,” said Sadler.
Stone was stabbed in the head and neck and almost had his thumb cut off, Alek’s brother, Peter Skarlatos told CNN. Stone remains in the hospital on Saturday recovering from his wound, NBC reports.
The gunman, who “never said a word” according to Sadler, has been taken into custody and the investigation has been turned over to the counter-terror police, reports the Telegraph.
A European counterterrorism official said the Moroccan national suspect was known for his radical jihadist views, reports CNN.
France has been on a high terror alert since a spate of radical Islamist attacks including the attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January.
Asked how he felt about being a hero, Sadler told French TV, “I’m just a college student. I came to see my friends on my first trip in Europe, and we stopped a terrorist,” Sadler told French TV. “It’s kind of crazy.”
Sadler’s father told KCRA that he was “stunned” and “relieved” to hear his son was safe.
“He leaves here a young man on an excursion to broaden his world view and have fun with his buddies, and he comes back a … national hero,” said the elder Anthony Sadler. “I’m told he might meet the president of France before he leaves so I’m still wrapping my head around that.”
