I am no hero': US youth who saved Indian from Kansas bar shooter

Kansas (United States): Lying in his hospital bed, Kansas youth Ian Grillot cannot understand the praise being showered on him. 

“I am not a hero. It was a natural thing, I only did what anybody else would have done,” he says.  

For Grillot, who was visiting his favourite local bar for a relaxed evening on Thursday, it was just another day. But things took a nasty turn as he was shot through his arm and chest, trying to apprehend a gunman who opened fire at two Indian engineers in an apparent racist attack. 

He was wounded along with the one of the other victims, and managed to 32-year-old Alok Madasani, while the other man, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, succumbed to his injuries. Madasani has now been discharged, while Grillot continues to be under observation.

Speaking to Kansas City Star, Grillot said, “I guess I miscounted.” He had lunged at the gunman, thinking that the attacker had exhausted all his bullets.
US prosecutors have charged the 51-year-old attacker, Adam Purinton with murder for an attack which, according to witnesses, was racially motivated.

The newspaper talked to locals who said Grillot was known to defuse tense situations and it was natural for him to step up after Purinton allegedly confronted the two Indians and yelled at them, “Get out of my country”, before opening fire.

Grillot said in the video that he wasn’t really thinking when he tried to save the two Indians from the bullets.

“It was just, it wasn’t right, and I didn’t want the gentleman to potentially go after somebody else,” the Kansas City Star quoted him as saying.

But despite the harrowing circumstances, Grillot told the newspaper he was thrilled to see Madasani standing in his doorway at the hospital.

He said he considered the Indian his new “best friend”. A GoFundMe page created for him raised more than $87,000.