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How They Stopped a Massacre

It was an act of heroism that averted a bloodbath.

Now, the three Americans who disarmed a gunman on a European train have spoken to WHO about their ordeal.

Childhood friends Spencer Stone, 21, Alec Skarlatos, 22, and Anthony Sadler, 19, who were on a European holiday, were heading from Amsterdam to Paris on a crowded high-speed Thalys train on Aug. 21 when they heard a gunshot.

In the adjacent carriage, it is alleged Moroccan citizen Ayoub El-Khazzani, 26, had emerged from a bathroom armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, a hand gun and box cutter. After French-American passenger Mark Moogalian charged at him and attempted to disarm him, Moogalian was shot and wounded in the back and neck.

“The gunshot was the first noise I heard,” Skarlatos, an Army National Guard specialist, tells WHO.

When he saw El-Khazzani enter the carriage, Skarlatos hit Stone on the shoulder and said, “Dude. Let’s go!”

Stone charged at El-Khazzani, followed by Skarlatos and Sadler. “We saw him cocking the AK-47. So it was either do something or die,” says Sadler.

The gunman put up a fight. “Tackled him. We hit the ground,” Stone explains. “Alek came up and grabbed the gun while I put the guy in a choke hold. It seemed like he just kept pulling out more weapons, left and right.”

Skarlatos, Stone and Sadler with French President Francois Hollande and US ambassador to France Jane Hartley on Aug. 24. Photo: Getty

El-Khazzani slashed at Stone, nearly severing his thumb before the bulky airman “choked him unconscious.” At the same time Skarlatos beat El-Khazzani in the head with the muzzle of one gun and Sadler secured the other gun.

After they tied up the gunman, Stone, a US Air Force paramedic, saw that Moogalian “was squirting blood out of the side of his neck,” he said. “So I just stuck two of my fingers in the hole, found what I thought to be the artery, pushed down and the bleeding stopped.” Said Moogalian ‘s wife, Isabella: “He stayed in that position for the whole journey so I think he really saved my husband’s life.”

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