By Master Sgt. Dave Thompson
75th Battle Command Training Division
FORT HOOD, Texas - “I was taking my lunch break when someone screamed, ‘there's shooting, shooting at medical!’ I didn't believe it. I was saying to myself, ‘did I hear right? No way, impossible.’ …and then screams, cries and shouts of ‘get down, take cover!’”
These were the remarks of an astonished Jeannette Juroff as she recalled that fateful Nov. 5, 2009 afternoon here, as members of the military came under a terrorist attack that left 11 Soldiers and two civilians dead and 31 others wounded.
Sgt. Jeannette Juroff is an Army Reserve Soldier with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Brigade, 75th Battle Command Training Division.
She was working at her civilian job as a Human Resource Specialist at the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness and Processing Center when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly went on his deranged shooting spree.
Amidst the mayhem and chaos of people scrambling to escape the gunman, the 32-year-old Juroff ran into the SRP conference room to call 911 and noticed an injured Soldier writhing in pain on the floor.
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| Sgt. Jeannette Juroff (left), poses with Pvt. Jia Sun at a memorial ceremony at Fort Hood, Texas, honoring the victims of the Nov. 5 Fort Hood shootings. |
She made several attempts to call the police but could not get through. It was at this moment she received a phone call from Capt. Andrew Duncan, a member of her unit. She quickly told him what was happening and ordered him to call the police.
"I was personally speaking with Sgt. Juroff during the attack," said Duncan, "I could hear the rounds going off as we spoke. She said, ‘someone is going crazy and shooting everyone, call 911 now!’”
Juroff ended the call and turned her attention back to the wounded Soldier. She could hear the shooting and the horrified screams of other victims and people running for cover and she willed herself to suppress the instinct to run as well.
“I knew I had to remain calm because he seemed very scared. I wanted to run but I took a deep breath and got the nerve and casually walked up to the kid,” said Juroff. “I talked to him for a bit, ‘…hey what’s your name, what do you do for fun?’ He was only 18; a young kid from Idaho.”
Juroff said the Soldier, Pfc. George Stratton, had sustained a severe bullet wound to his left shoulder. As other wounded began pouring into the room, she told the medic that was helping him to go assist someone else and continued to monitor his condition. “His shock symptoms were very severe,” said Juroff. “His breathing was extremely shallow and he was fading in and out and just wanting to go to sleep.” She continued engaging him in random conversation to calm him and keep him awake while applying pressure to his wound to control the bleeding then assisted in relocating him outside to get him evacuated.
While waiting to load him into an ambulance, Juroff experienced the full scope of the carnage along with the persevering spirit of the American Soldier.
“Once outside by the curb, we saw all the injured; head, chest, leg wounds…Soldiers taking their shirts off, ripping them and balling them up for pressure bandages and pillows. I told him (Stratton) he was doing good and was going to be just fine.”
“The EMT's showed up asking ‘are there anymore wounded?’ They were hesitant on staying in the building a second longer because the area was still not secured, but a fellow EMT bravely hollered out, ‘We are here now and we will take him. Load him up!’”
Three weeks passed since the shooting and after undergoing several surgeries, Stratton was recovering well. He and his family credited Juroff for saving his life. For Juroff, the entire incident still seems surreal as she searches for answers as to why someone, a Soldier and officer of all people, would resort to such violence against his own. She credits her Army training for “keeping her in the fight” and for “doing the right thing” in rendering aid to a fallen comrade. She also rejects the notion that she was somehow a hero in all this.
“I think there are people who just don’t have a conscience to leave another person bleeding… or dying,” said Juroff. “My conscience is connected to my spirituality and would not allow me to walk away from that situation without helping. There were many heroes that day. There were people that died because they tried to knock the gunman over to save others and they died immediately. All I did was apply pressure and talk to somebody.”
Juroff takes comfort in commiserating with her co-workers and other survivors and drawing on her faith to get her through the difficult aftermath. “I think God had me in the right place just so I could be there for that kid,” I think he spared my life for some purpose and I will continue to help others in any way I can.”
