Half a dozen soldiers at a Georgia army base have been awarded medals for tackling an armed assailant accused of shooting five people and then giving aid to their wounded colleagues, three of whom have now been released from hospital.
Sgt Quornelius Radford, 28, who was assigned to Fort Stewart, is accused of using a personal handgun to shoot five of his fellow soldiers on Wednesday before he was quickly tackled by other troops. Army officials would not speculate about a motive.
“The fast action of these soldiers under stress and under trauma and under fire absolutely saved lives from being lost,” the army secretary, Dan Driscoll, said at a news briefing on Thursday morning. “One of the soldiers tackled the person, so just think about this – they were unarmed and ran at and tackled an armed person who they knew was actively shooting their buddies, their colleagues, their fellow soldiers.
Related: Sergeant in custody after shooting five soldiers on Georgia base, army says
“Another soldier jumped on top of the person to subdue them until federal law enforcement was able to arrive.”
According to CNN, the soldier who was the first to subdue the suspect has been named by the army as Staff Sgt Aaron Turner, with Master Sgt Justin Thomas helping to keep him restrained. Four other soldiers tended to the wounded, according to Driscoll.
One of them, Staff Sgt Melissa Taylor, said she was in her office when she heard a fellow soldier “yelling that a gunshot went off”. After peering into the hallway and seeing smoke, she noticed a soldier lying on the ground. “I immediately sprinted over to the soldier and started rendering aid. He had been shot. And so I was rendering aid to him, while the first sergeant started calling medics,” she told reporters.
The six soldiers were awarded the meritorious service medal for “outstanding non-combat meritorious achievement or service” on Thursday.
The shooting occurred in the 2nd armored brigade combat team area, where Radford worked. Brig Gen John Lubas, commander of the third infantry division and Fort Stewart-Hunter army airfield, said two of the five soldiers who were shot remain hospitalized, said in comments reported by CNN.
“One solider remains as an in-patient at Winn Army [community hospital] right here on Fort Stewart. She’s doing very well, in high spirits,” Lubas said. “Of course, she’s got a little bit of a road to recovery. We’re hopeful she may be released as early as this weekend but that will just depend on how things heal up over the next couple of days.”
Another solider who was more seriously injured is recovering at Savannah Memorial community hospital, about 45 miles from the base, the general said. “She’s got a little bit longer road to recovery. The doctors are very positive, but I think it’s going to take her a big longer to recover. They’re very hopeful she’s going to make a complete recovery.”
The other three shooting survivors were released yesterday, according to Lubas. The Army has not identified them nor the nature of their injuries.
According to the New York Times, Radford sent a text message to his aunt on Wednesday morning which said that he “loved everybody, and that he’ll be in a better place because he was about to go and do something”.
Radford’s father told the Times he hadn’t noticed anything unusual about his son’s behavior recently, and didn’t know what might have led him to attack his fellow soldiers.
Radford remains in custody.
