Chicago Native Hailed As Hero After Jumping Into Action To Aid Girl Shot At Atlanta Block Party
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Chicago native jumped into action to save a fellow student after a campus shooting in Atlanta this week.
The shooting happened late Tuesday night at a block party near Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta. Four female college students suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
As CBS 2's Charlie De Mar reported Thursday, Derrick Daniels, a student at Clark Atlanta, was there at the time.
His mother, Gabrielle Herndon, woke up to a terrifying text.
"You haven't heard, there was a shooting at the school. Yes I'm good. Yes I was there, and I gave the girl my shirt to compress her wound until the ambulance came," Herndon read the text aloud.
Herndon was naturally alarmed.
"Until I talked to him, I was uneasy, because I needed to hear his voice see his face," Herndon said.
Daniels grew up in Bronzeville and graduated from Kenwood Academy. But on Tuesday night, the college sophomore found himself somewhere amid the chaos in Atlanta.
"It was about three shots, and then it was about six to seven more shots after that, and that's when the entire crowd just ran," Daniels said.
Police Thursday night were looking for the gunman. The shooting sent most people at the block party for cover – but not Derrick.
"I saw the young lady that had gotten shot," he said.
"When he realized there were girls who were injured, he went back to them to provide them with assistance," his mother said.
"I took off my shirt and I just wrapped it around her leg and I tied it real tight – took it by compression, because I know that's what they do in the Army and stuff like that when people get shot, so I figured that would help the bleeding," Daniels went on.
Herndon said she was "amazed, but not surprised," by her son's heroism.
"Derrick's an amazing person who always wants to help out," she said. "Very proud of him."
For Daniels, it was the first time he was called upon to take action in such a situation.
"I've lost friends to gun violence," he said, "but I've never been like in the situation where they've died, like, or needed my assistance truly in the moment."
But that girl, on that night, needed him.
"I feel like she probably would have bled a lot more," he said.
Daniels also had a message for the gunman.
"You almost took the life of four innocent women, and I mean, that's just unacceptable," he said.
On Thursday night, Daniels met with that girl helped. She has been released from the hospital and is expected to recover.
As for Daniels' own future, he is working toward becoming a teacher once he graduates.