Alaska teacher who saved student one of 22 Carnegie Heroes
Man helped rescue 7-year-old from knife-wielding intruder
PITTSBURGH - An elementary school teacher from Alaska who saved a student from a knife-wielding attacker was one of 22 people recognized today by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.
Jeffrey Carl Harriman, 52, a reading teacher from Palmer, says he still isn't used to having the "hero" label applied to him since he helped rescue Stephan Hansell, then 7, at Mountain View Elementary School in Anchorage in 2001.
"I like to call Will Rogers a hero of mine, so when people started calling me a hero, it didn't feel the same," Harriman said.
On May 7, 2001, Jason Pritchard carried a filet knife into the Mountain View Elementary School and stabbed or slashed three boys as they stood in line with other children for the school's breakfast program. He then walked down the hall to a classroom and confronted Stephan and about a dozen other students.
"Kids were just streaming and pouring into the office, scared to death," Harriman said. "That's when I saw this guy in the school, going down to a classroom."
Harriman followed.
"I just reacted - something was wrong with our kids. Somebody needed to take care of them and take charge of the situation," Harriman said.
Pritchard yanked Stephan from beneath a desk and slashed the boy's throat. Harriman pushed Pritchard down, buying time for the other students and another teacher in the room who scurried away.
"It was a real funny feeling, after I got in the room and I committed myself - like your hand's caught in the cookie jar," Harriman said. "You know you're in a situation that you have to go through on."
Harriman then picked up a plastic crate that was part of a science kit and stood over the bleeding boy, wielding the crate as a shield, until police arrived and subdued Pritchard with a beanbag-shooting gun.
"He was on a - I'm not sure what to call it - some kind of religious quest, and said the only way to save the kids would be to kill them now," said Harriman, a Christian, who tried to reason with Pritchard.
"I told him that I believed in heaven and I believe in God and he said, 'You're an adult - it's too late to save you, you've already sinned. The only ones I can save are these kids - if I can kill them first.' "
In April, 34-year-old Pritchard was sentenced to 99 years in prison for the knife attacks on Stephan, now 8, and three other students.
Stephan was hospitalized but recovered, and has transferred to another Anchorage public school.
Harriman was honored today along with Jerry L. Croll, 57, Aliquippa, Pa., who helped Clairton police Officer John Dunlap fight off a man who shot him seven times in October 2000.
Industrialist Andrew Carnegie started the hero fund in 1904 after being inspired by rescue stories from a mine disaster that killed 181 people.
The awards, bronze medals that come with $3,500 for the honorees or their survivors, are issued five times a year. Three of today's award winners died rescuing others.