Tanya Wilson was getting ready for dinner in her basement tattoo shop on Toronto鈥檚 Danforth Avenue on Sunday night when she heard the sound of gunshots.
She began running up the stairs to see what was going on at street level when a mother and son burst through the door, saying 鈥淗e has a gun, he has a gun.鈥�
鈥淭hey were both injured so I brought them down the stairs, locked the door behind us, shut the lights off, told them to be quiet and just kind of assessed the situation,鈥� Wilson recounted on CTV News Channel on Monday.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know it was a mass shooting,鈥� she added. Wilson would later learn that a man with a handgun had gone on a shooting spree, killing 2 people and injuring 13 others. The suspect, identified as 29-year-old Faisal Hussain, was pronounced dead at the scene.
The gunshot victims had both been shot in the legs, so Wilson grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of tights and fashioned two tourniquets.
She then went outside and flagged down a police officer, who helped her re-do the tourniquets before the two victims were rushed off to hospital.
strangers have reached out to call Wilson a hero. She鈥檚 struggling to accept that label, saying that she hopes other people 鈥渨ould do the same thing.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 weird that people would recognize that it鈥檚 that, rather than that鈥檚 just what you鈥檇 do for your neighbours and people in your community and people in general I guess,鈥� she said.
Wilson added that she was saddened to hear about the victims, 18-year-old Reese Fallon and an unidentified 10-year-old girl. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just hitting me now I guess,鈥� she said.
