'I will protect you': Moving words of hero who dived on school teacher and mother of two during Fort Lauderdale shooting to protect her from killer who stood OVER them as he fired

  • Annika Dean was waiting for luggage at 1pm Friday when gunman opened fire
  • Electrician Tony Bartosiewicz covered the 42-year-old with his own body
  • At one point gunman Esteban Santiago was stood directly over them, firing
  • Both Dean and Bartosiewicz escaped unscathed. Five others were killed
  • Santiago gave himself up to police. He now faces the death penalty 

By James Wilkinson For Dailymail.com

Published: 11:03 EST, 8 January 2017 | Updated: 11:50 EST, 8 January 2017

A Florida school teacher has told of how she was protected during the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting by a stranger who covered her body with his own, even as killer stood right next to them.

Annika Dean, 42, a mother of two from Broward County, was waiting for her luggage around 1pm on Friday when she saw gunman Esteban Santiago, 26, walking towards her with a pistol. 

She dropped to the floor as the gunman advanced, firing into the fleeing crowds - but was protected by a stranger, Tony Bartosiewicz, who shielded her body with his own, the Miami Herald reported.

Saved: Florida school teacher Annika Dean (center, with her sons, aged 11 and 13) was just feet away from Fort Lauderdale gunman Esteban Santiago when he began his rampage on Friday

Hero: Tony Bartosiewicz (pictured in the airport with wife Jennifer Cleeton) covered Dean's body with his own as the gunman stood over them, firing into the terrified crowds

Dean said Santiago had her trapped as he advanced on her position.

'There was no way I could have escaped,' she said. 'I would have been right in his path if I had tried to evacuate through the doors.' 

Instead she got down and lay prone on the ground, keeping her eyes down from the carnage that left five dead and eight others injured.

As Santiago - an Iraq war veteran whose family said he had been suffering from mental issues - fired silently into the screaming masses for 30 seconds, Dean confronted the fact that her two sons, aged 11 and 13, might be left without a mother.

But then she felt a movement over her as Bartosiewicz, an electrician from Rochester, New York, moved his body over hers.

'He basically climbed on top of me and whispered, "I will protect you,"' Dean told the Sun-Sentinel. 'I knew he might be a victim, but I also knew I would survive.'

The gunfire continued for what felt like another minute and a half, she said, and at one point Santiago actually stood over them, firing, Bartosiewicz later told Dean.

'Other than the gunshots, which were very loud,' Dean didn’t hear anything else, she told the Herald. 'Sometimes he sounded close, sometimes he sounded farther away.'

Eventually the police arrived and took him in alive, after he threw down his now-empty pistol.

Shooter: Santiago (left) is an Iraq war veteran who was said to be mentally ill by his family. He gave himself up after his pistol (right) ran out of ammunition. He now faces the death penalty

Both Dean and Bartosiewicz, who was in the airport with his wife Jennifer Cleeton, escaped unscathed - but the electrician's bravery didn't go unnoticed.

'The first thing I said to him was I thanked him and told him that it was terrifying and what he did brought me comfort, that it was just so comforting,' Dean said. 'I thanked him throughout the day and told him he was a hero.'

Bartosiewicz is currently on a well-deserved cruise and cannot be contacted, but his daughter - Jenny Miller, of Denver - told the Sun-Sentinel that her father's actions didn't surprise her.

'That’s the kind of person he is. He would do something like this without thinking,' she said. 

Dean said that the experience left her shaken, but that she wouldn't let it affect her life.

'Loud noises might set me off and I think I'll probably put my phone down more often and pay attention to my surroundings,' she explained.

'I'm still going to go to the movies, I'm still going to go to church, I have to be in public places.'

Santiago was taken into custody without resisting. The motive for his shooting is unclear, but he had previously told the FBI he was being 'controlled by ISIS'.

He now faces the death penalty. 

Terror: This is the horrific moment the gunman opened fire. Five people were killed and eight injured in the shooting on Friday afternoon

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