David Eubank, 56, a former U.S. Special Forces operative turned aid worker, rescued a little girl after being trapped by ISIS gunfire on a recent Friday.
Eubank noticed several bodies 150 yards away from his location, some of them dead. However, Eubank noticed a young girl around the age of five peeking under the hijab of her dead mother, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The former Green Beret, wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest, was filmed running out amid ISIS gunfire to rescue the young girl, while two other men covered him with fire of their own.
The U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi troops that Eubank was with dropped smoke canisters to help him run through the gunfire while hiding from the ISIS snipers’ view.
Eubank and the others were 10 yards away from the girl after creeping up behind a tank.
“I thought, ‘If I die doing this, my wife and kids would understand,’ ” Eubank told the Los Angeles Times.
Eubanks later went back to find a toddler and a man who were amongst the bodies. Eubanks was unable to find the toddler, and the man had been killed by ISIS gunfire.
According to the LA Times, the rescue took place in the streets of Mosul near a destroyed Pepsi factory while ISIS snipers were firing at civilians attempting to flee the city.
Eubanks served in the military for 10 years before he founded an aid group called the Free Burma Rangers, a group that delivers medicine, supplies and humanitarian support where other organizations can’t go, Eubank said.
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