STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — School Safety Agent Peter Mattera was at his usual post outside Tottenville High School Tuesday afternoon for dismissal when he heard multiple gunshots in his area.
He rushed toward the scene, just dozens of feet from the school’s entrance, and put a call over his radio that there were possible shots fired. When the victim, a 14-year-old boy, hit the ground just across the street from him with blood coming from his ankle, he jumped into action.
Mattera, a 14-year veteran of the department who has spent the past six years at Tottenville High School, reached into his trauma kit on his waist and relied on training he received from the department to respond to dangerous situations,
“I came down on my knee, and I started to apply a tourniquet to his right ankle,” said Mattera, describing the harrowing ordeal. “He was bleeding profusely.”
An example of a tourniquet that is contained in School Safety Agent Peter Mattera's trauma kit. (Staten Island Advance/Joseph Ostapiuk)
Part of the trauma kit School Safety Agent Peter Mattera used to aid a 14-year-old shooting victim. (Staten Island Advance/Joseph Ostapiuk)
With the help of two of his partners by his side, Mattera applied the tourniquet to the top of the 14-year-old’s right thigh before an ambulance could make it to the scene.
Even after the blood stopped, Mattera did not consider his job to be done.
“He was nervous. He thought he was going to lose his leg,” Mattera said of the victim. “I was trying to comfort him and just get him through until the ambulance came.”
EMS transported the injured boy in stable condition to Staten Island University Hospital in Ocean Breeze. Students at the high school sheltered in place and a controlled dismissal occurred.
Thinking back to his experience at the school over the past few years, Mattera said the incident felt “surreal” to have occurred near his post. The NYPD beefed up its presence outside the school, and Mattera noted some students remain “on edge” in the wake of the shooting.
“We’re trying to calm them down,” he said.
School Safety Agent Peter Mattera and Tottenville High School student. (Staten Island Advance/Joseph Ostapiuk)
Tottenville High School Assistant Principal Gregory Pagliarulo and School Safety Agent Peter Mattera. (Staten Island Advance/Joseph Ostapiuk)
The NYPD released images of five individuals sought for questioning in connection to the shooting. Police said the 14-year-old victim was not the intended target.
Parents have expressed concern over a lack of communication and unreliable WiFi in the school following the incident, limiting the ability for students to notify family members in cases of emergency.
The city Department of education said Tottenville High School reached out via phone and email to families on “multiple occasions” following the incident.
Borough President Vito Fossella called Tuesday’s shooting incident “terrible” at an impromptu press conference a block away from the high school.
“What happened today was a tragedy; there’s a family whose son was shot and that should not be in this day . . . and in this community,” he said.
