Injured in train attack moved to larger hospital

Stone was one of three young American friends who helped overpower a Kalashnikov-toting suspected Islamist militant on a high speed train heading for Paris from Amsterdam.

The term “hero” is thrown about very casually these days but the men who helped avert certain disaster on a Paris train yesterday are more than worthy of the word. The trio and a British national, all who unarmed, attacked the heavily armed terrorist and disarmed him.

Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler were on a train from Amsterdam to Paris on Friday when a man armed with an automatic rifle and a box cutter started attacking passengers, ABC News reported.

Stone was traveling with two childhood friends – Alek Skarlatos, a National Guardsman who had recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan, and Anthony Sadler, a senior at Sacramento State University – when the gunman burst into their train auto near the city of Arras in northern France.

The attack began at around 5:50 p.m. (1550 GMT) when a French passenger discovered the gunman in a toilet with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder.

The wounded included the U.S. soldier and another unidentified passenger.

“These men are heroes”.

Train operator Thalys said that travellers were safe and the situation was under control. “We are extremely proud of their efforts and now are praying for our injured airman to have a speedy recovery”. “And we didn’t know that his gun wasn’t working or anything like that”, he added.

He was subdued by a group of passengers that included U.S. servicemen, and there were no fatalities. He was known to the French authorities after being flagged as a potential jihadist by Spanish intelligence services.

A gun was fired and a French-American passenger was injured by the bullet.

“Then one guy, an American, said “Go get him” and I heard another American say ‘Don’t you do that, buddy.’ So then I decided that perhaps it was really the only time or only chance was to act as a team and try to take over the terrorist”. “He was bleeding himself, could barely see, blood running down his own face”. “My thought was, okay, probably I’m going to die anyway”. According to an account Skarlatos gave to the New York Times, Spencer grabbed the gunman by the neck while Skarlatos managed to wrest his rifle away.

According to France24, when Skarlatos checked the AK-47, it had jammed and would not have been able to fire. The third man is a civilian, Chris Norman, a British man living in France.

“I was sitting at the front of the carriage”, said Norman in the same interview.