In his first remarks since Friday's attack on an Amsterdam-to-Paris train, Stone said he and his friends took down the gunman before choking him unconscious. "He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end," Stone said. Add Interest 
 
 Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and their civilian friend Anthony Sadler were on the Amsterdam-to-Paris train Friday when a gunman, who had already fired a shot that wounded another passenger. Stone is hailed not only for being the first to grapple with the attacker, but for helping to stop the bleeding in a French-American passenger wounded by a bullet. Stone, who had a black eye and had his left arm in a sling after undergoing surgery to reattach his thumb that the attacker slashed with his box cutter, said that once the gunman was hogtied on the floor, he went to help another injured American, Mark Moogalian, and used his fingers to stop bleeding in the Moogalian's neck. Stone said the attacker kept pulling out weapons from his bag, and that he was stabbed in the neck and sliced on his hand. "At that time he was cocking the AK-47," Sadler said today from the U.S. Embassy in Paris, "So it was either do something or die." Ambassador Jane Hartley praised the three Americans, calling them heroes. "We often use the word hero and in this case I know that word has never been more appropriate," Hartley said. "They are truly heroes."
– "It was either do something or die," says US Airman Spencer Stone in his first public comments on stopping a gunman from rampaging through a French train. He describes waking from "a deep sleep" to see the gunman holding an AK-47, reports ABC News, his first thought going to "survival, to survive and for everyone on the train to make it." The gunman "seemed like he was ready to fight to the end," Stone said, per the AP. "So were we." Stone, along with longtime friends Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos, spoke about the attack today from the US Embassy in Paris; Stone was released from the hospital yesterday after surgery to reattach his thumb, which was severed with a boxcutter. "In the beginning it was mostly gut instinct, survival," added Skarlatos, a National Guardsman. "Our training kicked in after the struggle." The threesome credit each other: "The gunman would have been successful if my friend Spencer had not gotten up," says Sadler, while Stone says simply, "I trust both my friends very much. If it wasn't for them I would be dead." US Ambassador Jane Hartley pointed to Americans' penchant for throwing around the word hero" but said, "in this case I know that word has never been more appropriate. They are truly heroes. When most of us would run away, Spencer, Alek, and Anthony ran into the line of fire, saying 'Let's go.' Those words changed the fate of many." The guys are getting some serious praise, and next meet with a grateful Francois Hollande.