Aug. 22--Sacramento college student Anthony Sadler was on his first trip to Europe when his heroism made him an international figure.
Sadler and two other men were credited with stopping a terrorist attack on a French train Friday.
"I'm just a college student. This is my last year in college," Sadler said at a news conference in France. "I came to see friends and ... my first trip in Europe. And we stopped a terrorist. It's kind of crazy."
Sadler grew up in the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova and is a senior at Sacramento State University.
His parents said they got a call from Sadler on Friday night telling them what happened.
"He has a great love for his friends, and there's no way he would stand on the sidelines and watch them get attacked," his father, Anthony Sadler Sr., said in a phone interview with The Times on Saturday morning. "I'm thanking God they were not seriously injured."
He said he's been told that his 23-year-old son may meet with the French president and that a phone call from U.S. President Obama is possible.
"It's pretty awesome," the elder Sadler said. "I'm a senior pastor, and my son is a man of faith. The fact they were on that train, in that country, on that day is not a coincidence."
Sadler, a senior at Sacramento State University studying kinesthesiology, was traveling with Spencer Stone, of Carmichael, Calif., and Alek Skarlatos, a National Guardsman from Roseburg, Ore., when they heard a gunshot and breaking glass.
The elder Sadler said his son told him the gunman entered the car brandishing an automatic rifle and other weapons. A conductor tried and failed to subdue him, and the three young men, friends since childhood, made a "split-second decision" to jump into the fray.
"Alek yells, 'Go!' or 'Get him!' and at that point, Spencer jumps in, then Alek and Anthony follow," Sadler said. "They're pretty strong young men."
After Skarlatos wrestled away the rifle, the gunman pulled out a box cutter and "almost severed" Stone's thumb, Sadler said. With the help of a fourth man, they were able to get him to the ground and tie him up until police came, Sadler said.
The three men have been friends since middle school in the Sacramento area and decided to take the excursion before Stone was reassigned from Europe at the end of the year, Sadler said.
It was Sadler's first trip to Europe and he enjoyed taking pictures and "the yummy food" in Venice and Amsterdam before heading on the train to Paris," he said.
"We live in a world full of good and evil, and the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing," the elder Sadler said. "I'm thrilled to death good men did way more than nothing."
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Update
10:55 a.m. This article has been updated with new information about Anthony Sadler and an interview with his father.
This article originally published at 10:42 a.m.
