Policeman with arrow in back helped others to safety
AN OFF-DUTY police officer has been hailed a “hero” for saving people’s lives during a deadly bow attack in Norway, despite still having an arrow stuck in his back after being shot.
Rigoberto Villarroel, 48, told The Daily Telegraph he was in the supermarket with his family when Espen Brathen began his rampage on Wednesday evening in Kongsberg, a picturesque town near Oslo. “I saw him with his bow in the store, he started shooting and I immediately called my colleagues in the police, and told others to run,” Mr Villarroel said, in his first comments to British media, shortly after being released from hospital. “While I was on the phone, I turned away from him and he shot me in the back,” he added.
But rather than collapsing or trying to hide, he kept trying to warn others.
“I stayed there at the entrance to the store until the other police officers arrived,” Mr Villarroel said.
Brathen, a Danish citizen, who recently converted to Islam, eventually killed five people over the course of the evening. But more could have died had the officer not continued to keep warning people, locals said.
“I had my headphones on and saw this man come towards me. He said for me to go home and stay inside,” said Markus Alexander Kultima, 23, who visibly shook and fought back tears as he recounted his experience.
“When I walked past him, I saw the arrow sticking out of his back.”
“Those few metres, from the place that we met to when I walked home, were very, very long. I think he’s a hero. He saved my life”
Another local resident, who lives above the supermarket where Brathen began the attack, said she was walking up a road when the off-duty officer “ran up to me and shouted, ‘You must go away, you must go away! There is a man inside attacking people.’”
Per Thomas Omholt, head of the regional police, said: “At this point we can’t say much about the officer.
“It is a rare case in which a police officer becomes a victim in such a case.
“What we can say is that he did a very good job, and helped many people out of the store when the attack took place.”
Mr Villarroel said he spent yesterday evening celebrating the fact that he survived with his family. “It’s been incredibly hard on them,” he said. “I have five children, and they found out that I had been wounded in the attack from watching the news.
“It is a weird moment, being thankful I survived while mourning for the others killed in Kongsberg.”
Brathen, 37, has confessed to the killings and is being detained in a medical institution rather than jail.
He is being held on five counts of preliminary murder and three counts of preliminary attempted murder.