“I’m Sorry I Couldn’t Save Their Children”: Father Who Stopped Oregon School Shooter Opens Up About the Trauma He Still Carries

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A Father Who Ran Toward the Gunfire Is Now Struggling With the Lives He Couldn’t Save

One split-second decision helped stop a deadly school shooting. But for the father who made it, the emotional aftermath has been far more complicated than the word “hero” can capture.

Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter and father of two young girls, is speaking publicly about the terrifying moments inside Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, and the guilt he says has followed him since the October 15 attack.

In an emotional interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), Giamanco described how an ordinary school morning turned into a tragedy that changed his family and devastated an entire community.

Although authorities have credited his intervention with helping prevent further loss of life, Giamanco remains focused on the people who did not make it home.

“I want to apologize for not saving their babies,” he told OPB.

His words reveal the painful burden behind an act of extraordinary courage.

It Started as an Ordinary School Morning

October 15 began like any other day for the Giamanco family.

Giamanco and his wife prepared their two daughters, ages 5 and 10, for school picture day. He dropped them off at Silver Rail Elementary before heading to a construction job.

Nothing about that morning suggested that he would soon find himself running toward an armed attacker at the same school where his children had been only hours earlier.

Later that day, while driving home for lunch, Giamanco saw a teenager carrying a shotgun near the school.

According to his account to OPB, the situation quickly became alarming. He called 911, retrieved his legally carried handgun from his vehicle and decided to follow the armed teenager into the school.

“I’m sorry, I have to go in. People are going to die,” Giamanco recalled telling the dispatcher.

It was a decision made in the face of immediate danger, with children inside the building and no certainty that he would survive what came next.

Inside the School, Every Second Mattered

The shooting unfolded at Silver Rail Elementary on October 15, when a 16-year-old former student opened fire inside the school.

Giamanco told OPB that he entered through a shattered window and heard children pleading for their lives as gunshots rang out.

He knew his own daughters attended the school. He also knew other families were depending on the children inside to come home safely.

When Giamanco reached the classroom, he saw an educator struggling with the gunman. He fired his handgun, fatally shooting the teenager and ending the attack.

Police have credited Giamanco and the educator who confronted the attacker with helping prevent additional deaths.

The incident claimed the lives of three boys, ages 5, 8 and 11, and 25-year-old teacher Megan Lambert. A 7-year-old student and educator Becky Drury were also seriously wounded.

The deaths left families grieving, children traumatized and a community struggling to understand how such violence could reach an elementary school.

For Gi