Thaindian News

Huntsville, Feb 18, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Debra Moriarity did not set out to become a hero on February 12. She simply got up that morning and went to work at the University of Huntsville, just as any other work day. This day was to be tragically different, however, and would have most likely been much worse had Debra not been there that day.

This 55 year old college professor quite possible saved many lives while coming very near to losing her own. She said that she had heard a shot, and looked up to see her friend, Amy Bishop, holding a gun, and firing it. “She looked like she was intent on doing this and she was angry,” Moriarity recalled.

Debra, and several others had been sitting at a round table at a biology meeting. She said that she watched as her friend and colleague methodically shot the people sitting all around her, killing some of them instantly. Debra dove under the table, but not to crouch in fear like most of us would, she scrambled towards her friend the shooter, reaching for Bishop’s legs.

The next thing she knew, she was looking down the muzzle of the gun, and pleading with her friend for her life. “I know I yelled at her, ‘Amy, think about my grandson, think about my daughter,” Debra Moriarity told “Good Morning America” Her begging did not sway her friend in the least. “She stepped out in the hall and pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. And it clicked and clicked again,” Moriarity said. “I’m here talking to you today because the gun didn’t fire.”

Bishop stopped pulling the trigger to reload, and Debra rushed her, followed by others, and they managed to push Bishop, who was upset over being refused tenure at the Huntsville Alabama school, from the room, and put up a barricade. Three people died and three others were seriously wounded, but five managed to escape unharmed.