American heroes who helped thwart terror attack in France speak

Three quick-thinking Americans – two of them US servicemen – are being hailed as heroes for preventing an apparent terrorist attack which could have resulted in many causalities aboard a train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris. US President Barack Obama congratulated them and British premier David Cameron praised the passengers for stopping the gunman. Skarlatos, who served in Afghanistan, said that when he examined the assault rifle, he found that the gunman had tried to fire it but that it didn’t go off because it had a bad primer.Sadler said the gunman remained silent throughout the brief incident.

She said: “These three courageous young Americans, along with the French and British passenger, demonstrated remarkable bravery and acted without regard for their own safety in order to subdue a heavily-armed individual who appeared intent on causing mass casualties”.

Undated photos of Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler. “It all happened really fast”, Sadler told BFMTV.

Sadler said the men were only in that train auto, which was first class, because the Wi-Fi had been shaky in the vehicle they initially Saturday They had bought first-class tickets, so they made a decision to hunt down their seats. I put him in a chokehold.

“He’d see me taking groceries out of my trunk and he’s come over and help me bring them in my house without being asked”, said 87-year-old Rosemary Campbell, a longtime neighbor of the Stone family in Carmichael. He said Skarlatos tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go”.

A Thalys train of French national railway operator, SNCF, stands at the main train station in Arras, northern France after a gunman opened fire injuring three people, Friday, August 21, 2015.

The three met in middle school, the New York Times reports, and chose to take a trip through Europe together – Stone is stationed in the Azores Islands, near Portugal. He was subdued by the Americans while the train was travelling through Belgium, but was taken into custody in France after the train was rerouted to the northern French town of Arras.

Married grandfather-of-two Mr Norman said he helped overpower the gunman because he thought he was “probably going to die anyway”. We feel grateful is everyone is alive and Spencer is doing okay in the hospital and that everyone is – can off that train and go to their homes and meet their families.

The man Chris Norman says this was his motivation.

Even after he was injured, Mr Stone helped to save the life of a passenger who was squirting blood from his neck after being hit by a bullet.

Authorities in Spain said El-Khazzani had lived in the country until past year and had a police record for drug-dealing.

“When I cleared the handgun I also noticed that there was no magazine in it – so he had either dropped it accidentally or did not load it properly. He pulled out a hand gun and a box cutter and started jabbing at me with that”.

Skarletos said, “Spencer ran a good 10 meters to get to the guy and we didn’t know his gun wasn’t working or anything like that. We’re very grateful to God”, Skarlatos’ stepmother said.