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She survived a standoff with a gunman --- could you?

By John Blake, CNN
updated 4:49 PM EST, Tue February 25, 2014
  • Antoinette Tuff saved 800 students from gunman
  • Her actions offer survival guide to others
  • Tuff survived because she made three key decisions
  • Survival expert: "She played her part perfectly"

(CNN) -- Antoinette Tuff's knees tremble as she stares at the black barrel of an AK-47. Her hands shake so much she can't hold a pencil.


"This is not a joke," the man shouts at Tuff. "I need you to understand this is not a joke. I am here. This is real. We are all going to die today."

Tuff, a school bookkeeper, isn't supposed to be at work today. She's filling in for the front office receptionist as a favor. Now she is the only one standing between the gunman and 800 children at an elementary school just outside Atlanta.

Tuff began her day by reading Psalms 23: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."


Tuff was too terrified to speak when the gunman burst into the school, but what she said during the standoff that followed was credited with saving hundreds of lives. Tuff recounts the standoff in her new book, "Prepared for a Purpose," in which she attributes her actions to God. Yet Tuff's story can also be read as a survival guide for anyone who wonders what to do if they're suddenly facing someone with a gun.


"She had a unique, deep and profound skill set that she was able to bring to the situation," says Kris Wilder, a 30-year veteran of the martial arts and author of "How to Win a Fight: A Guide to Avoiding and Surviving Violence."

"She played her part perfectly."

Finding purpose in talking down gunman
We are all going to die today!
Michael Brandon Hill, accused of threatening a shooting at an elementary school
Antoinette Tuff: 'I knew how he felt'
911 call from Georgia school shooting

Tuff says today that she didn't have time to think -- she just reacted. But talk to her and it's easy to see why she connected with the gunman. She is a jovial, unpretentious woman with a husky laugh; after five minutes you feel like you're talking to your favorite aunt. She is now touring the country, giving inspirational speeches.

"I just try to help people with their purpose," Tuff says. "What do you do when God calls your number? Are you ready?"

Here are the three moments that show why Tuff was ready:

Moment 1: She "changed the channel"

Tuff watches as the gunman lowers the rifle and paces across the front office. He is a stocky man in his 20s with brown, cropped hair and a nose that looks like it's been broken. He is breathing heavily as he turns to Tuff and bellows:

"Call 911 and call a news station. Tell them I'm going to start shooting."

Tuff's shaking hand grips the phone as she dials 911. She quickly complies with everything the gunman asks, addressing him as "sir" as she relays his messages to the dispatcher. The minutes drag on, and the gunman shouts threats and waves his rifle at Tuff.


"Can I go to the bathroom?"


Tuff's odd question "changed the channel," Wilder says. He and other survival experts say gunmen often whip themselves into a state of rage before they shoot people. They are literally no longer thinking straight -- the "lizard brain," or the brain's lower functions, are in control. They often refuse to make eye contact with their victims and back up when they are about to shoot.

Tuff noticed that the gunman refused to make eye contact with her. Be wary when an angry gunman refuses to look at you, says Laurence Gonzales, author of "Deep Survival," a book that examines why some people are more resilient facing sudden life-threatening situations.

"He's got himself into a fit of rage and he's trying to protect his emotional state," Gonzales says of Tuff's gunman. "He knows it's a very fragile state. If he doesn't make eye contact, he can keep that emotional state encapsulated."


"The guy is locked in and he's going to continue on his path unless there is something that changes the channel," Wilder says of the gunman Tuff faced.



"You want a pretzel?" she asked.

The man halted, confused, and then muttered, "Yes."

"Open your mouth," the woman said.

He did as commanded. The woman plopped a pretzel in the man's mouth. End of story. The man didn't bother anyone else because she had changed his channel, or shifted his thought patterns.


"It was almost ridiculous that in the middle of a violent standoff I asked the gunman if I could go to the bathroom," Tuff wrote in "Prepared for a Purpose," which was co-written by Alex Tresniowski. "If I had heard someone else did that I might have thought, 'How dumb can you be?' "

But Tuff was actually being clever, Wilder says. Changing the mood can work in all sorts of potentially violent situations. Say you're facing a gunman who wants to rob you -- or worse, someone who is preparing to shoot you -- and your only chance might be to make a run for safety.

Change the channel with an out-of-the-blue question like, "What time is it?" or a nonsensical question like, "What was Gandhi's batting average?" A question that shifts the gunman's thinking may save your life, Wilder says.

Wilder says words are weapons, and he keeps a mental list of nonsensical questions -- Where did you buy that shirt? Did you get Lasik surgery? -- that he can fire off at a moment's notice.

"All my go-to questions are all chambered," Wilder says.

Moment 2: She anchored herself



Tuff watches as the gunman takes a plastic chair from the office and uses it to prop open the school's main door. He raises his rifle and begins shooting at police, who by now have gathered outside.

Glass shatters and bullet casings scatter across the office. But for some reason, a blanket of calm settles over Tuff. She watches the gunman fire away, but doesn't move from her seat.

Tuff takes another chance.

"Sweetheart, come back in here," she tells the gunman. "Bullets don't have no names. And those bullets gonna kill me and you. I need you to come back in here and it's gonna be you and me and we will work this thing out."

Press accounts of the standoff made much of Tuff's ability to empathize with the gunman. She called him "sweetheart," told him about her marital problems, and revealed that she had once contemplated suicide.


But here's the thing about empathy: It matters little if you're not calm enough to employ it during a life-threatening situation, survival experts say.


"They go into a zone," he says.

I thought I was screaming. I didn't realize how calm I was.
Antionette Tuff, who saved 800 students from gunman

Tuff and the entire school staff had received some training for dealing with dangerous situations involving trespassers. But it was life's hardships that had conditioned her like a soldier. She automatically calmed down when faced with an extreme situation. She had been trained to do so by her own struggles, as well as by her faith.

Tuff calls it "anchoring." It's the spiritual practice she incorporated into her life that she says helped her during the standoff.


"Trust me, sitting for 15 minutes isn't as easy as it sounds," she says in "Prepared for a Purpose." "I could sit and watch a TV show for an hour, but listening for the Lord for 15 minutes was a challenge. I had to work on it. I had to practice."


That's what quick-thinking people who survive life-threatening situations often do: They practice calmness before their crisis, says Gonzales, author of "Deep Survival."

You don't have to open the Bible to practice calmness; you can do it during rush hour, he says.

"You have to practice emotional calm in your everyday life to have it in an emergency," Gonzales says. "Look at your emotional responses to everyday things: If you're stuck in traffic, are you pounding the steering wheel or do you turn on classical music and relax?"

Tuff's calmness -- not just her empathy -- helped her connect with the gunman because emotions are like viruses; what you feel can be transmitted to others, he says.

"If you're with someone who is lighthearted and happy, you're going to feel the same emotions," he says. "She transmitted these feelings from her own deep beliefs and sincerity, and he caught this emotional message from her. It completely disabled him."

Tuff didn't know she was so poised during the standoff.

"I thought I was screaming," she says today. "I didn't realize how calm I was. I went back to listen to the (911) tape and it was like I didn't even recognize who I was. I could not repeat what I said if you asked me. I had no idea what I was saying. I know it was God."

Moment 3: She evoked the motherhood mystique

The gunman obeys Tuff's commands and wobbles back into the office. He slumps in a chair. He's bleeding from his elbow; he cut himself while shooting at the police.

"I feel so badly about my life," the gunman says softly. He tells her he is off of his medication for a mental disorder; that he should have gone to the hospital.

"Well don't feel bad baby," Tuff says. "My husband just left me after 33 years. I mean I'm sitting here with you and talking about it."

Tuff tells the gunman she can let police know that he didn't harm her. She offers to walk outside with him so they won't harm him.


"I really messed up," the gunman tells Tuff as he waits for the police to enter the office.

"It's going to be all right sweetie," Tuff tells him. "I just want you to know I love you, OK, and I am proud of you. That's a good thing you've given up, and don't worry about it. We all go through something in life."


Listen to the 911 tape to see how she managed the transition. At the beginning of the tape, she is not the mother. She is a soldier obeying a superior officer, barking out his orders to the 911 dispatcher. By the end of the call, though, she is cooing "sweetie" and "baby" to the gunman as if she is a proud mother.


Becoming a maternal figure to the gunman helped save Tuff's life, Wilder says.

Up until age 7, mothers are the provider of everything to boys, Wilder says. A gunman pumped up on adrenaline and anger is often functioning at the mental state of a young boy -- they see the world through simple emotions like hate and fear.


"She had life experience," Wilder says. "She was coming from that mother archetype. That would not have worked if she was a first-year teacher out of Missouri State."


"It's really easy for another man to kill another man," Wilder says.

Tuff's standoff ended when she negotiated the gunman's surrender with police. No one was hurt. The gunman was later identified as Michael Brandon Hill, who was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, terroristic threats and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. A spokeswoman for the DeKalb County public defender's office says a motion stating that Hill is incompetent to stand trial has been filed, and his case is still pending. Tuff says she has not spoken with Hill since their encounter.


"I know that every last thing I've gone through, from childhood up to the end, prepared me to save that young man and all of those students," she says.

Still, there's a harsh truth that cannot go unmentioned in stories similar to Tuff's.

An extraordinary person like Tuff can do everything right in such a situation and still get killed, says Gonzales, author of "Deep Survival." He cited the Columbine shootings, where, apocryphal or not, one victim of the notorious Colorado high school massacre was said to have evoked her Christian faith before she was killed by one of the teenage gunmen.

"She could have easily done what she did and got herself killed," Gonzales says of Tuff. "She was very lucky in addition to being very brave."

Luck, it has been said, is the residue of skill. And Tuff's skill offers a lesson for others who may wonder how they would react in a similar situation.


A survivor.

What would you have done if you were in Tuff's place? Share your thoughts in the comments below.