Kaylub Giamanco planned an ordinary day with his family on October 15. The 36-year-old carpenter helped his wife prepare their two daughters for school. They made breakfast, packed lunches and dressed the girls for picture day at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon.
After dropping them off, Giamanco drove to a job site northeast of the city. He had brought lunch with him, but later decided to return home to eat with his wife. He skipped a few errands he had considered doing along the way.
That choice brought him close to Silver Rail Elementary at about 12:58 p.m. He was driving along Brentwood Avenue when he noticed a person dressed in black and carrying a long gun.
The person was a 16-year-old who had begun a deadly attack near the school. Giamanco followed the teenager toward the grounds and eventually shot and killed him, according to his account to OPB.
The shooting killed three children, aged 5, 8 and 11, and a 25-year-old teacher. Two other people were seriously injured. Police credited Giamanco with helping prevent further deaths at the school, which has more than 400 students.
A Change of Plans Becomes a Critical Moment
At first, Giamanco thought the armed person might be involved in a prank or carrying a BB gun. His view changed when he saw the teenager fire twice at a red pickup truck.
The gunman then turned toward the school grounds and fired another shot at a woman mowing the lawn. When the teenager threw the gun over a fence and climbed after it, Giamanco understood that the threat was real.
He opened his truck’s center console to look for his .40-caliber handgun. He said he rarely used the weapon and briefly feared it might not be there. He found it and retrieved the magazine from a separate compartment.
Giamanco then drove into the school parking lot while watching the teenager move across the grounds. He used his phone’s voice assistant to call 911 but did not stay on the line to answer the dispatcher’s questions.
He told the dispatcher he had to go inside because people were going to die.
Giamanco climbed over the fence and followed the gunman from a distance. He moved along the edge of a wallball court, trying to remain out of sight as the teenager approached a side entrance with glass double doors.
Giamanco told OPB that he heard the gunman fire twice into the doors. He ran toward the building and lowered himself to the ground, crawling beside the windows on his hands and knees.
Inside, he heard children pleading for their lives. Then he heard more gunfire. He said he crawled faster and thought he might be doing something that would cost him his life.
Experiences That Shaped His Response
Giamanco believes his past helped prepare him for the emergency. As the oldest of seven children, he spent years helping his single mother care for the family.
He also remembered a motorbike accident involving his brother. Giamanco used a makeshift tourniquet to help save his brother’s life during that incident.
Later, he received informal military training from veterans of the Iraq War. Those experiences gave him practical knowledge that he believes influenced his response when he saw the armed teenager near the school.
Still, Giamanco was not a trained law enforcement officer responding to an assignment. He was a father who had happened to drive past his children’s school at a dangerous moment.
He told OPB that he had always wanted to change the world but often felt that he was only an ordinary carpenter from Bend. He said the shooting had made him feel a greater responsibility to speak out and try to improve society.
A Community Left in Shock
The attack at Silver Rail Elementary left families mourning young children and a teacher. It also raised painful questions about school safety and the events that led a teenager to carry out such violence.
Giamanco’s account offers a personal view of the moments before he entered the school. He described fear, confusion and the urgent belief that children inside were in immediate danger.
His presence at the scene depended on several small decisions. He did not eat the lunch packed in his truck. He chose not to make other stops. He also happened to have a handgun in his vehicle.
Those choices brought him to Brentwood Avenue as the attack unfolded. Giamanco has since said that he wants to use the attention surrounding the incident to encourage positive change.
The tragedy remains defined by the lives lost and the people seriously injured. Yet Giamanco’s story also shows how an ordinary parent found himself facing an emergency without warning and chose to act when he believed children were at risk.
