Hero Football Coach Aaron Feis Dies Saving Students in Florida Shooting

At least 17 people were confirmed dead in yesterday's high school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Florida, the 30th mass shooting so far in 2018 in the United States and 18th at a secondary school.

One heroic football coach, Aaron Feis, died after he shielded students from gunman Nikolas Cruz as he injured and murdered fellow students.

Students reported that Feis, a security guard and coach at the school, jumped in front of students to protect them, taking several bullets in the process.

A number of people have been killed in Wednesday's shooting including student Jaime Guttenburg, while athletic director Chris Hixon, 49 was also among the dead, as the Daily Mail reported earlier today.

The attacker was arrested by police and taken into custody.

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As America reeled from the shooting, one of Feis's students took to Twitter to ask users to pray for his injured coach before he was confirmed dead.

On average, 96 Americans are killed each day by guns. 62 percent of firearm deaths are suicides, though America's gun homicide rate is over 25 times higher than other high-income countries, with 3.61 per 100,000 residents, compared to 0.50 and 0.48 in Canada (2nd) and Portugal (3rd).

Topics: Florida

Ronan O'Shea

Ronan J O'Shea is a freelance journalist from London who has written for titles including LADbible, Headspace, The Independent, National Geographic Traveller and New York Post. Contact him at [email protected].