Elderly veteran fought off a knife attack with his bare hands to save 16 children

A quick-thinking elderly veteran saved the lives of 16 children who were trapped in an Illinois library when a knife-wielding man threatened to kill them all. Dustin Brown, 19, reportedly burst into the Morton Public Library, blocked the door, and told everyone that he was going to "kill some people." James Vernon, 75, got up to try to talk him down.

"I tried to settle him down. I didn't, but I did deflect his attention [away from the children] and calmed him down a bit. I asked him if he was from Morton, did he go to high school. I asked what his problem was. He said his life sucks. That's a quote," Vernon told Pekin Times. Brown, who is due to appear in court for child pornography charges, specifically wanted to murder the children, who range in age from 7 to 13. But Brown, who was wielding fixed blade hunting knives about five inches long, backed away as Vernon spoke to him, and the children were able to escape out of the room. Brown was left facing Vernon, his potential victims now gone.

Brown was "whittling on his left arm," Vernon said. "He was trying to scare me, and he did." But that also alerted Vernon to which hand the attack would come from — when Brown slashed toward Vernon, the veteran, remembering his knife-fighting training from the Army, blocked the blade with his left hand.

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"I should have hit his wrist. That's how you're trained, but it's been half a century," Vernon said. He was eventually able to throw Brown onto a table and hit his arm until he released the knife. A library employee was able to help keep Brown pinned until police arrived.

Vernon suffered two cut arteries and a cut tendon in his hand and is recovering at home.