A special education math teacher who was seriously injured in the deadly mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia expressed his “everlasting gratitude” toward two teens who helped stop his bleeding after he was shot.
David Phenix, who was shot twice while protecting his students when a teen suspect opened fire, shared his appreciation for two 14-year-olds who came to his aid after two bullets ripped through his hip and foot during the Sept. 4 attack.
“I would like to thank those who, in the course of all the chaos, found it in themselves to take my life in their hands,” Phenix wrote on Facebook, listing those he wanted to thank.
“To Valerie Lancaster, the Math teacher that I co-teach with who managed to put pressure on my wound while, at same time, managing and calming a class of 23 scared, terrified, and panicked teenagers.”
He added: “To 2 fourteen-year-old students who filled in for Ms. Lancaster and pressurized my wound while Valerie called for help. You both are exceptional young people and have my everlasting gratitude.”
The teacher noted that the “images, sights, sounds and actions are immense and will be forever etched” in his memory.
“Right now, my emotions are so much easier to describe than the justification sand reasons behind them,” he added.
While Phenix survived the shooting, four others died at the hands of accused gunman Colt Gray, 14.
Phenix said “the pangs of sorrow and grief” for the families of the four people killed — Ricky Aspinwall, 39, Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14 — “stay at the forefront of everything.”
He was also thankful that his injuries managed to miss “every vital ligament, tendon, bone and organ.”
“Had things been a quarter inch to the left or right, things could have been vastly different,” he noted.
Phenix, of Loganville, had been teaching at the school for just over a year, according to his LinkedIn profile. He has been a schoolteacher for 23 years.
Gray was arrested and charged as an adult with four counts of felony murder.
The gun used in the deadly shooting was given to the alleged gunman by his father, Colin Gray, who supposedly believed the weapon would help “toughen him up.”
The 54-year-old was also arrested and charged in connection with the shooting, including four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children in the second degree.