Kaylub Giamanco, a local carpenter and father in Bend, Oregon, has provided the first detailed account of the moments he intervened to stop a gunman during a deadly shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School. The incident, which occurred on a Thursday, claimed the lives of three students and one teacher before Giamanco, who was passing by the school on his lunch break, used his own firearm to neutralize the suspect.
Giamanco was driving home for lunch when he spotted a teenager carrying a shotgun and walking across the school grounds. Realizing the immediate danger to the children inside, he described a state of “full panic” as he pulled into the parking lot. Giamanco immediately attempted to coordinate with emergency services, using a hands-free command to call 911. However, as the dispatcher began a series of protocol-mandated questions—including whether he knew the suspect—Giamanco grew frustrated by the delay. He told the operator he could not wait any longer, stating, “I’m sorry. I have to go in. People are going to die,” before hanging up to enter the building.
Upon entering the school and peeking through a window, Giamanco witnessed a desperate struggle. A teacher was on the left, wrestling with the gunman, who was positioned on the right and armed with a rifle. Giamanco noted that neither the teacher nor the gunman was aware of his presence, which provided him a tactical advantage. He swung the door open and fired his weapon. The impact sent both the teacher and the gunman to the ground. The teacher, unaware that Giamanco was there to help and fearing he was a second assailant, immediately scrambled out of the building. Giamanco recalled the visible fear in her eyes as she fled, a moment he said “hurt a lot” to witness.
The confrontation did not end with the initial shot. Giamanco looked down and saw the gunman attempting to regain control of his rifle. To prevent any further casualties, Giamanco fired two more times to ensure the suspect could not move or continue the attack.
Reflecting on the physical and emotional toll of the intervention, Giamanco described feeling as though he was having a heart attack throughout the ordeal, noting a level of chest pain he had never experienced before. While he expressed a belief that he was meant to be at the school that day to act as a “last line of defense,” he also spoke candidly about the heavy burden of taking a life, noting it was not how he expected his day to go.
Giamanco was particularly vocal about the heroism of the unnamed teacher who struggled with the gunman. He credited her with providing the distraction necessary for him to take a clear shot without endangering her life. He expressed a desire to meet her, stating that to put oneself between children and a firearm without a weapon of one’s own is the mark of a “real true hero.”
Despite the public gratitude for his actions in preventing more deaths, Giamanco remains haunted by the casualties that occurred before he arrived. He expressed a deep desire to speak with the families of the victims to apologize for not being able to save their children. “The gratitude for saving people’s children is awesome, but there’s ones that I didn’t save, and that’s probably the hardest thing for me right now,” he said.
