Latest update : 2015-08-24,
French President François Hollande revealed on Monday the identity of the man who heroically wrestled a loaded AK47 from the gunman aboard the Amsterdam-Paris train service on Friday. Report France24
The French President has announced he will award Mark Moogalian the Legion d’Honneur, the country’s highest decoration, as soon as he is well enough.
Moogalian, a French-American professor at the Paris’ famous Sorbonne University, is undergoing medical treatment for a gunshot wound from the incident.
The 51 year-old was the first person to come to the aid of “Damian A.”, a French banker who initially confronted the attacker Ayoub El-Khazzani.
He wrestled the Kalashnikov assault rifle off El-Khazzani, who then drew a sidearm and shot Moogalian in the neck before taking back the AK47, it has emerged.
His wife, Isabella Risacher-Moogalian, told France’s Europe 1 radio that he “is among the heroes on this story”.
“I’m hit, I’m hit!”
Isabella Risacher-Moogalian described hiding behind train seats from the gunman and then seeing her husband wounded.
“He looked at me and said ‘I’m hit, I’m hit.’ He thought it was over and he was going to die,” she said.
US Airman Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and university student Anthony Sadler also tackled the gunman on Friday as he moved through the train armed with an assault rifle and an automatic pistol. A British businessman, Chris Norman, also helped subdue the attacker.
Moogalian lives in Paris but is originally from Midlothian, Virginia, in the USA.