'I was supposed to be here': How 3 Lee teachers responded to gunfire to save a life

Before paramedics or police arrived at the scene of the shooting outside Robert E. Lee High School Wednesday, three teachers combined efforts to save the girl struck by the bullet.

School had just ended. The bell had rung. Teachers Angela Washington and Felix Tyree were in Room 335 on the third floor. Washington was thinking about going home to see her daughter. Tyree was looking forward to watching basketball at home.

Then the shots rang out from just outside the school.

Tyree looked out the open window and saw students "scattering around.” He took off downstairs. Washington looked out the window and followed.

“I looked out the window and saw the young girl. He ended up running down because he saw her on the ground. I looked out and heard her friend say, ‘She’s down,’ and I just ran down there and tried to do the best I can to save her,” Washington said the day after the shooting. “There was nothing to think about. It’s just something you spontaneously do if it’s anybody down on the street.”

Already outside and on ground level was Scott King, a teacher and former firefighter. He was near the fence talking to a security guard when he heard the crack of the .40-caliber pistol.

“I heard shots, and I’m like, ‘No way,’” King said. “I turn around and see a young man in the field firing off shots. It seemed so surreal. Then I heard a young lady say somebody was shot. So I turned around and ran to that young lady.”

King found the girl first and immediately put his medical training to use. She had been shot in the neck. He checked her breathing.Tyree came over to help followed by Washington.

“I just had to react,” Tyree said. “We all reacted. Thank God we were able to be there.”

Tyree had been involved in a similar situation before when a student at Wetumpka Junior High School stabbed another with scissors. He knew he had to talk to the girl and keep her calm.

"Those feelings came back. Those emotions came back," Tyree said.

King asked for something to stop the bleeding. Washington literally gave him the shirt off her back. King pressed it to the wound.

“I responded swiftly and did what I had to do,” King said. “I had exceptional people here to help me.”

More on Lee High School shooting: 16-year-old arrested for school shooting

None of the three could recall exactly how long that moment lasted, but then the rest of the world caught up to them. Principal Lorenza Pharrams checked on the group. The school was put on lockdown. Police arrived and quickly arrested 16-year-old Quinterrious Norman. King kept his fingers on the girl’s wounds until the medics had her stable. She was eventually flown to Birmingham Children’s Hospital in critical but stable condition.

While she was bleeding on the ground outside her school, however, King said she was “cool as a cucumber.”

“We had a great conversation. She talked about what she’s going to do for Spring Break and showed so much resilience throughout the whole situation,” King said.

It was a situation every teacher must be prepared for but never wants to endure. Washington went home and spoke to her daughter, but the conversation was much different than it would have been.

“It was more consoling. She was there for me,” Washington said.

Tyree watched basketball but said it was more to decompress than anything. He also cried.

King moved to Wetumpka in October after being a firefighter in Columbus. He said he became a teacher so he could have an impact on kids’ lives. He, Tyree and Washington fulfilled that goal in the most important way possible Wednesday.

“I told my wife that I was supposed to be here and I was supposed to do what I did yesterday, but it’s not about me. I’m a servant and that’s what I do everyday,” King said.

Hours before the three teachers shared their story, Norman’s bond was revoked and word came out of the bond hearing that he brought the gun to school due to bullying. At the school, counselors offered assistance to any grieving or shaken students. The teachers acknowledged that Wednesday’s shooting will have a profound impact on some students but be quickly forgotten by others. What’s most important, they said, is to remain firm in the belief that the school is one big family.

Pharrams said there is no better time for the students to leave for break.

“We pride ourselves on truly being a family at Lee High School, and even though the young lady has only been with us just a couple of months, she’s a part of us. To witness what went on yesterday it truly did affect everyone here,” Pharrams said. “I’ve had my share of tragedies in a school setting that I’ve had to deal with, and the best thing I’ve seen over the years to help in a situation like this is time. What I don’t want to happen is for a couple of weeks to go by and for students to forget everything. That’s why we constantly stress to the students school safety and safety between here and home and also stressing to them that in order for things to change, not just in the school but in the neighborhoods and the community, in order for things to change we have to get to a point where that type of behavior is unacceptable. That has to become the new culture, that we’re not going to accept that.”