Colorado high school student Joshua Jones called his mother while subduing shooter

Updated
Colorado high school student Joshua Jones called his mother while subduing shooter

A Colorado high school student who was inside a classroom when a shooter opened fire last week decided to phone his mother while actively subduing the attacker.

Joshua Jones, an 18-year-old senior at STEM School Highlands Ranch, recalled during a Tuesday press conference the horrifying moment one of his fellow classmates entered his British literature class on May 7 and pulled out a gun.

Jones was one of three students — including Kendrick Castillo and Brendan Bialy — who made a "split-second" decision to lunge at the shooter, the teenager told reporters.

"He retrieved a gun from what he was carrying it in, he brought it up, said 'nobody move,'" Jones recalled. "Me, Brendan and Kendrick all got up ... pretty much at the same time."

"There wasn't a whole lot that was going through my mind at the time. Adrenaline and tunnel vision are a crazy thing," he continued. "They make it so that you don’t really focus on anything but what’s right in front of your face at that moment."

However, amid the life-or-death situation, Jones still thought to call his mother, who encouraged him to remain calm.

"She always has been a problem solver for me," he said during the conference. "It was a pretty quick conversation. It was really just something like, 'Hey, Mom. There's been a school shooting. I've been involved. The authorities are on the way. They’re going to get an ambulance and I’m going to go to the hospital. That's all I got right now for you.'"

Jones was shot twice in the leg during the attack and is said to be recovering quickly, while Bialy, a senior who is enrolled in the Marine Corps Delayed Entry Program, remained physically unharmed.

Castillo, a close friend of Bialy's, was tragically killed. The 18-year-old senior, a decorated four-year member of the school's robotics team, was the sole fatality of the shooting, which left eight others injured.

Devon Erickson, 18, and Alec McKinney, a 16-year-old female who prefers male pronouns, were arrested in relation to the incident. They are both being held on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, NBC News reports.

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