As a gunman stormed Norris Hall at Virginia Tech University, the students in Professor Liviu Librescu's classroom could hear the shouts and gunfire coming closer to their room. Realizing what was happening, Professor Librescu—a 76-year-old Holocaust survivor—urged the students out the window as he braced himself against the door so the gunman couldn't enter.

An article in The New York Daily News reports that most of the students "hung out of the windows and dropped about 10 feet to bushes and grass below. Librescu stayed behind to hold off the crazed gunman. Alec Calhoun, 20, said the last thing he saw before he jumped from the window was Librescu, blocking the door against the madman in the hallway. He died trying to protect the students."