Kaylub Giamanco rushed into Silver Rail Elementary School after hearing children pleading for their lives. Although police credit his actions with saving lives, the father of two says he is still struggling with the victims he could not reach in time.
A father who stepped in to stop a diᩚadℓy school śh́óóting in Oregon has revealed the heartbreaking memories that continue to haunt him — from the desperate cries of children inside the building to the families he wishes he could have saved from unimaginable loss.
Kaylub Giamanco, 36, a carpenter and father of two girls who attend Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, described the terrifying events of October 15 in an emotional interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), published on October 23.
The śh́óóting claimed the lives of three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and 25-year-old teacher Megan Lambert. Two other people were seriously injured.
Giamanco pursued the 16-year-old šhσσtєr into the school and fatally shot him. Authorities have credited the actions of Giamanco and the teacher who confronted the attacker with helping prevent further loss of life.
But for the father who intervened, being praised as a hero has done little to quiet the painful question that keeps returning to his mind: Why couldn’t he save everyone?
“I’m sorry, i have to go in. people are going to die.”
Giamanco said the day began like any other. He had taken his daughters to school for picture day and later headed home during his lunch break, planning to eat leftovers with his wife.
As he drove near the school, he saw a teenager carrying a long gun. At first, he struggled to comprehend what he was witnessing.
Then the situation became unmistakably dangerous.
According to Giamanco’s account, he watched the teenager fire at a red pickup truck before turning toward a woman mowing the school grounds. The teenager then climbed over a fence and headed toward the building.
Giamanco immediately realized that children, including students at his daughters’ school, could be in danger.
He reached for the handgun stored in his vehicle and used Siri to call 911. But as he watched the teenager move toward the school, he believed he could not wait.
“I’m sorry, I have to go in. People are going to die,” he told the dispatcher before ending the call and rushing toward the building.
It was a split-second decision that would change his life forever.
Crawling toward the classroom
Giamanco described approaching the school while keeping himself low to the ground. He crawled toward the building and eventually made his way through a broken window.
As he moved closer, he began hearing children pleading for their lives, followed by the sound of gunfire.
He crawled faster, believing that he might not survive what he was about to do.
Inside, he reached a special education classroom where the teenager was struggling with a teacher who had already attempted to stop him.
The teacher, later identified as Megan Lambert, had confronted the attacker. Her actions created an opportunity for Giamanco to intervene.
He said the teenager had not noticed him approaching. Giamanco entered the room and fired at the šhσσtєr. When the teenager continued reaching for his w𝔢𝔞𝔭𝔬η, Giamanco fired again because he feared the danger had not ended.
The teenager died at the scene.
Police later credited both Giamanco and Lambert with actions that likely saved lives during the αttαᑕk.
For Giamanco, however, the memory of what happened inside that classroom remains deeply distressing.
He wants to thank the teacher who fought back
In the aftermath, Giamanco spoke with profound gratitude about Lambert’s courage.
He believes her decision to confront the teenager helped create the opportunity for him to intervene, and he expressed a desire to meet her and give her a hug.
At the time of his interview, he said he did not know her name.
Lambert was among the four people who lost their lives in the śh́óóting. Her actions, along with Giamanco’s intervention, have become central to accounts of how the tᩚraɢedy unfolded.
Their story is also a reminder that, amid extraordinary danger, people inside the school were trying to protect the children around them.
“I want to apologize for not saving their babies”
Despite the lives he may have helped save, Giamanco is struggling with the children who did not make it home.
When he spoke about the victims and their families, his emotions became overwhelming.
“I want to apologize for not saving their babies,” he said.
The words capture the burden he has been carrying since that day. He knows he acted when he saw children in danger, yet he continues to think about the families whose lives were permanently changed.
He has expressed gratitude that other children survived, but that relief exists alongside a painful sense of regret.
Police have praised his intervention, but Giamanco is not focused on recognition. His thoughts remain with the children who died and the parents who are now facing a future without them.
For those families, no words can undo what happened. And for Giamanco, knowing that he could not reach everyone in time has become one of the hardest parts of the experience.
The nightmare has followed him home
The śh́óóting did not end emotionally when the immediate danger was over.
Giamanco said he has struggled to sleep and repeatedly relives the moments inside the school. The faces, voices and screams he encountered continue to return to his mind.
He is also processing the fact that he took the teenager’s life.
In the interview, Giamanco wondered whether the tᩚraɢedy might have been prevented if the teenager had experienced more love and better parenting. His comments reflected his attempt to make sense of an event that left several families devastated, rather than an established explanation for the šhσσtєr’s actions.
Investigators have not established a definitive motive for the śh́óóting.
The experience has affected his entire family. Because their home is within sight of the school, they temporarily stayed elsewhere, including in a hotel and a vacation rental.
His five-year-old daughter has repeatedly hugged him and told him she loves him. His 10-year-old daughter, meanwhile, has been quieter as the family tries to process what happened.
Giamanco said his daughters would not be returning to school for some time.
For a father who rushed toward danger to protect children, the aftermath has meant trying to help his own daughters feel safe again.
Turning tᩚraɢedy into action
Although Giamanco is still struggling with the emotional consequences, he hopes to turn the experience into something that could help other families.
He has discussed ideas for raising money to improve school security, including stronger door locks and bullet-resistant glass. He has also expressed support for having school resource officers in every school.
His goal, he said, is to help prevent another community from enduring the same nightmare.
He does not want his experience to become a political argument. Instead, he hopes people will focus on practical steps that could help protect students and teachers.
It is a difficult mission to pursue while still coping with the memories of what happened, but he wants the lives lost at Silver Rail Elementary to be remembered for more than the violence that took them.
A father still thinking about the children
In the days since the śh́óóting, Giamanco has been widely praised for entering the school when he believed children were in danger.
Yet his own account is not one of triumph.
It is a story of fear, split-second decisions, courage and the emotional cost of surviving a tᩚraɢedy that others did not.
He is grateful that he was able to intervene. He is grateful for the teacher who fought back. And he remains deeply conscious of the families who are grieving children and a teacher they will never see again.
Giamanco may never stop wondering whether he could have done more. But the responsibility for the tᩚraɢedy does not rest on his shoulders simply because he could not save everyone.
On October 15, he saw children in danger and chose to act.
Now, as he tries to help his own daughters recover and considers ways to make schools safer, he is left with the memories of those he could not reach — and the hope that something can change before another family experiences the same heartbreak.
