A female teacher, now hailed as 'hero' is said to have prevented a bigger massacre from taking place in the Marysville shooting that happened on Saturday.
The teacher, recognised as Megan Silberberger, ran to the cafeteria after hearing that 15-year-old Jaylen Fryburg had fired bullets and killed one classmate and critically wounded four others.
While some students dived for cover and others fled the scene, the teacher walked over to the teenager just in time when he had paused to reload his gun, and grabbed his arm, a witness told KIRO TV.
The teacher, in a way, prevented a massacre from happening at the Washington school as more students may have died if it wasn't for the brave interference by the woman, described as first year social services teacher and part-time soccer player.
"I believe she's actually the real hero. She's the one that intercepted him with the gun. He tried either reloading or tried aiming at her. But she tried moving his hand away and he tried shooting and shot himself in the neck," Erick Cervantes, a student from the same school, who witnessed the shooting, told the local TV channel.
The witness added that the gunshots followed a verbal argument and narrated how the teacher heroically confronted the teen to avoid further bloodshed.
"It wasn't (a) wrestle. She just grabbed his arm, and it lasted like two seconds, and I heard another shot," Carvantes said adding that it was the shot that killed the gunman.
Hundreds of students, teachers and parents piled into a nearby church on Friday evening for a candle-light vigil as the community reels in shock of the tragic loss of life and as four teenagers are being treated in hospital.
Some post on Fryber's Twitter page are full of angry outbursts, and his most recent post on Thursday morning says, "It won't last...It'll never last..."
"I should have listened...You were right," he wrote in another obscure message earlier in the week.
His pictures on social networking sites showed him in happy, playing sports and spending time with his girlfriend. In one of the images, however, he is seen holding the antler of a deer, with a hunting rifle next to him.
The gun used in the Marysville shooting was belonged to his father, reports have noted.
