Being brave and smart when you’re terrified? The real definition of a hero.

Have you heard about Antoinette Tuff? She talked the would-be Georgia school shooter back from the cliff. And she’s a bookkeeper, for God’s sake. What did she do? She…

mustered up the courage to talk Hill into surrendering — a one-on-one negotiation captured on the [911] tape.

“Don’t feel bad, baby,” she can be heard telling the young man. “My husband just left me after 33 years. … I’ve got a son that’s multiple disabled.”

Later, she can be heard reassuring him that “it’s all going to be well.”

After about 20 minutes, she won him over.

Tuff: “OK, he said that they can come in now. He needs to go to the hospital.”

Operator: “OK, and he doesn’t have any weapons on him or anything like that?”

[DeKalb County police Det. Ray Davis says the Georgia elementary school shooting suspect had “500 rounds of ammo with him.”]

Tuff: “He’s laying on the floor. He’s got everything out of his pockets. There isn’t anything. The only thing he has is his belt. Everything is out of his pockets. Everything is sitting here on the counter, so all we need to do is they can just come in, and I’ll buzz them in.”

Only after the ordeal was over did Tuff reveal just how scared she’d been the whole time:

“I’m going to tell you something baby — I’ve never been so scared in all the days in my life,” she told the unidentified operator. Then, she started crying and exclaimed, “Oh, Jesus! Oh, God!”

Full story here.

Amazing courage and inspired personal judgment. (Contrast with previous post…) “Tuff” as she unquestionably is, I’d like to put a comforting arm around her. She saved those children. People ask what Jesus would do. She did it.

Bravo.