Two Florida plumbers are credited with saving the life of a Royal Palm Beach High School student after responding to screams coming from a nearby restroom. Aaron Glover, 55, and his assistant Jimmy Johnson, 34, were making repairs in the girls’ restroom when they heard the noise.
Rushing into the boys’ restroom they found a youth on the blood-covered floor, another youth in his grasp, and students shoving to get out the door.
“He has a knife,” Glover shouted.
Still grasping a 9-inch pipe wrench, Glover approached the attacker, put a hand on his chest and edged the youth to the wall.
“All I felt was heat in his heart,” Glover told the Palm Beach Post. “He would not make eye contact. He just stood there.”
An assistant principal grabbed paper towels to stop the bleeding as a school nurse and officer arrived on the scene.
The attacker had dropped the knife but remained in the room. Johnson, 6-foot-2 and 290 pounds, stood guard until an officer escorted the youth away. The injured youth, stabbed 15 times with a pocketknife in the May 25 attack, was taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center. He has since been released.
An attorney for the 16-year-old accused of the stabbing speculated the fight was over a girl. Authorities are deciding whether to charge the teen as an adult.
“We were there at the right time,” Johnson told the Post. “If we hadn’t been in there, he would’ve been dead.”
In June, the plumbers were recognized for their heroism by Robert Avossa, Palm Beach County School District superintendent, and over 800 school administrators.
“They ran toward the problem, not away from it,” Avossa told the Post. “Our chief of police said they may well have stopped a murder.”
