Byron Price heard the clamor coming from a UC Merced classroom on Wednesday morning: crashing chairs, screaming students. According to Price’s father, he thought the uproar indicated a fight.

So Price, a contractor finishing up a construction job at the San Joaquin Valley campus, marched down the hall to enter the fray, unknowingly inserting himself into a stabbing rampage that left four people wounded, including himself.

Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke later called Price’s quick thinking an act of heroism that probably saved lives by thwarting the scope of the violence.

“Byron’s really good at calming people down,” his father, John Price, told The Times on Wednesday. “And then if you still want to fight, well, OK, he can do that, too.”

Click here to read the full story on LATimes.com.