Richard Fierro acted to save his family and fellow clubgoers.

On Saturday, a mass shooting occurred at LGBTQ+ nightclub Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where a gunman entered the club and immediately opened fire with an AR-15 rifle. Though 5 people lost their lives in the incident, the gunman was only able to fire for several moments before being subdued by several of the clubgoers. One of those clubgoers was 45-year-old Richard Fierro.

Fierro, who served in the United States military for 15 years and saw action in Iraq and Afghanistan, was at the club with his wife, daughter, and daughter’s friends to see one of her friends performing. When the gunman opened fire, Fierro immediately recalled his training and jumped him, disarming and subduing him with the help of another clubgoer.

“I just know I got into mode, and I needed to save my family — and my family was at that time everybody in that room,” Fierro told reporters at his home on Monday.

“That’s what I was trained to do. I saw him and I went and got him… I tried to save people and it didn’t work out for five. There’s five people who aren’t home right now.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” he said. “I’m not a hero, I’m just some dude.”

Jessica Fierro, Richard Fierro’s wife, also recounted her memory of the incident in a separate statement. “My husband took the gunman down,” she said. “My husband knocked the guns out of his hands and took the pistol and literally started hitting the guy with it.”

“We were having a great time, we were all on the dance floor and from one minute to the next you just heard gunshots and everyone was separated and just started running,” she said. “It was absolute chaos.”

Fierro has received a commendation from the Mayor of Colorado Springs for his bravery. “I have never encountered a person who had engaged in such heroic actions who was so humble about it,” Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said of Fierro. “He simply said to me, ‘I was trying to protect my family.’”