Teacher Krista Gneiting. From GoFundMe
We have had over a year of not hugging each other, shaking hands, or being near friends and family. Some experts think this “cold” behavior has harmed many, including students who weren’t physically able to attend school. We reflected on this more after reading about a teacher at Rigby Middle School in Jefferson County, Idaho who gave a student shooter a hug to disarm a tragic situation.
On May 6th, teacher Krista Gneiting went above and beyond to protect her students when, amidst her class’s test preparations, she heard the first of three gunshots ring outside in the school hallway. A sixth-grade girl had brought a handgun to school that day, shooting two people inside the school and one outside.
From her interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Gneiting describes in her own words her mindset and the subsequent acts of heroism that ensued:
“…I just told my students, ‘We are going to leave, we’re going to run to the high school, you’re going to run hard, you’re not going to look back and now is the time to get up and go.’”
Gneiting explains that as she was helping one of the students who had been shot, a sixth-grade girl appeared holding the gun. Instructing the wounded student to remain still, she approached the girl.
“It was a little girl, and my brain couldn’t quite grasp that,” she said. “I just knew when I saw that gun, I had to get the gun.”
She asked the girl if she was the shooter, walking closer until she could put her hand on the girl’s arm and slide it down to the gun.
“I just slowly pulled the gun out of her hand, and she allowed me to. She didn’t give it to me, but she didn’t fight,” Gneiting said. “And then after I got the gun, I just pulled her into a hug because I thought, this little girl has a mom somewhere that doesn’t realize she’s having a breakdown and she’s hurting people.” She said she held the girl and talked with her until police arrived.
The bittersweet nature of this tragedy underscores the complexities of navigating a world in which school shootings now seem to occur more frequently. Thankfully, the two students and one custodian that were wounded were treated and released from the hospital within a few days.
Despite the intense risk, Krista Gneiting went above and beyond for her students, protecting their lives as any mother or father would have done, and then turning her attention on another student who desperately needed help. As her brother-in-law, Layne Gneiting, noted in a post: “Determination pushed her to act, but tenderness and motherly love — not force — lifted the gun from the girl’s hands to hers.”
The hero cannot exist in a vacuum – it may require extraordinary circumstances to propel the most unlikely of us into action. But as a middle school teacher has just taught us: courage, kindness, and the power of a hug might just save the day.
See you on the road,
Lisa
LMA Newsletter of 6-1-21
