‘Ordinary’ heroes who disabled US gunman

TUCSON, Arizona – The gunman who allegedly attacked dozens here, including a US congresswoman, was reloading his weapon when bystanders, including a 74-year-old who had just been shot in the head, sprang into action to disarm him — and likely saved multiple lives.

In the aftermath of Saturday’s tragedy, a retired colonel and an older woman were being hailed as heroes for overpowering the gunman. So was Joe Zamudio, who was buying cigarettes nearby and raced toward the hail of bullets, his own weapon at the ready, eventually pinning Loughner to the ground until police arrived.’When the shooting stopped, I started to get up, and when I raised up, why, I didn’t realise it but he (the gunman) was standing right in front of me,’ Bill Badger, a retired colonel, told ABC’s ‘Good Morning America.’’Some individual there took one of the folding chairs that they had been sitting on while they were waiting to talk to the congresswoman, and hit him on the back of the head. And I was able to grab him,’ Badger said.White-haired Patricia Maisch, a 61-year-old businesswoman, had come to meet Giffords personally to thank her for voting for a major US stimulus package, but in an instant she was on the ground, ‘waiting to be shot,’ she told ABC.In the midst of the chaos, Maisch lunged forward and grabbed the magazine out his hands.