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Franklin Regional First Responders Honored At PNC Park

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- An honor at PNC Park for the paramedics and EMTs who responded when 20 students and a now-retired school resource officer were stabbed at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville last month.

The men and women who were honored by the Pittsburgh Pirates and Allegheny Health Network before Friday night's game say they're not heroes; they were just doing their jobs.

But doing their jobs saved lives back on April 9 when a student with two knives began stabbing fellow students and staff.

"When the call came in, at first there's kind of disbelief," said Kathryn Morgan, a paramedic at Murrysville Medic One. "But once you get there and you start moving, game mode kicks in and you kind of let your skills and your knowledge take over."

Dr. Christoph Kaufman, trauma medical director at Forbes Hospital, says the treatment victims got that morning definitely saved lives.

"Every step had to work right for these patients to have survived," said Dr. Kaufmann. "Two of the seven patients were bleeding to death. They didn't have an extra 10 minutes even."

Fortunately, all the students are now on their way to a complete recovery.

Emergency personnel from Murrysville and Monroeville were among those the crowd cheered for before the game.

Afterwards, the honorees got their pictures taken with Neil Walker and Pirates manager Clint Hurdle.

Hurdle said he's actually been asked by the school to speak to students at this year's commencement.

"It would be honor and very humbling to be part of that ceremony," said Hurdle. "Love on them, thank them, tell them to keep moving forward. There's great things in front of all of them."

RELATED LINKS:
Franklin Regional First Responders Get Special Thank You Dinner (5/18/14)
More Franklin Regional News
More Reports by David Highfield

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