Students stop knife attack on teacher
CONYERS, Georgia (AP) -- The estranged husband of a high school Spanish teacher burst into her classroom during a final exam and tried to stab her in the chest before students tackled him and pinned him to the floor, authorities said.
"Those kids are my heroes," Debbie Shultz said as she recuperated at home with stitches in her hand and leg where she was cut in the Wednesday attack at Heritage High School.
Theodore Franklin Shultz, 51, of Conyers was being held in the Rockdale County Jail on charges of aggravated assault, aggravated stalking, cruelty to children, disrupting a school and carrying a weapon on school property.
Nimesh Patel, 17, was taking a nap after finishing his final when he heard screaming and saw his teacher trying to fend off her assailant.
"I froze there for a second. Me and a couple of other guys grabbed him and threw him to the ground and basically sat on him until the cops came," said Patel.
Scott Wigington, 17, son of the Rockdale County sheriff, grabbed the hand holding the knife. Several others helped push the man to the ground.
The teacher said she is in the final stages of divorce after seven years and had a restraining order against her husband.
"I'm sorry that they were called upon to do such a huge job so early in their lives, but without them I wouldn't be alive," said Shultz, 46.
The suburban Atlanta school was the site of a May 1999 shooting in which a student opened fire on classmates, wounding six. T.J. Solomon pleaded guilty but mentally ill to charges of aggravated assault and is serving a minimum of 18 years in prison.
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