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Victoria Soto (a teacher who was among the 26 people gunned down during the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.) on Friday is being widely praised on Facebook as a hero after saving students in her class from being killed.
News of the mass shooting believed to have been carried out by 20-year-old Adam Lanza captured the attention of the entire nation.
But the tale of devastation at the Sandy Hook school is not without its heroes.
The day after the shooting, when many people posted statuses sharing condolences for the families and friends who had lost loved ones, photographs of Soto began to go viral on the social-media website.
Here is the description under one of the pictures – “This is Victoria Soto. The 27 years old heroic teacher who gave her life to save her students in Friday’s incident of Sandy Hook school. She hid her first graders in the cabinets and closets after hearing the gunfire. When the shooter came to her classroom, she told him that her students were in the gym. He then gunned her down and moved on. She saved the lives of all of her students. Please pass this on if you see it. She deserves to be remembered for her bravery.”

Victoria Soto.

Out of the chaos and horror emerged an incredible act of selflessness and bravery by one teacher who spent her final moments trying to protect her young students from harm.
Victoria Soto (27) a first-grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., ushered her students into a closet, and in so doing placed her body between them and the assailant.
“She was found huddled over her children, her students, doing instinctively what she knew was the right thing,” her cousin Jim Wiltsie tells ABC News.
“I’m just proud that Vicki had the instincts to protect her kids from harm” – he continued. “It brings peace to know that Vicki was doing what she loved, protecting the children, and, in our eyes, she’s a hero.”
Soto was among the six adults, all women, killed in the Friday morning massacre that also took the lives of 20 children: 12 girls and eight boys. The gunman, identified as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, took his own life. His mother was also found killed in a different location.

She beams in snapshots. Her enthusiasm and cheer was evident. She was doing, those who knew her say, what she loved.
And now, Victoria Soto is being called a hero.
Though details of the 27-year-old teacher’s death remained fuzzy, her name has been invoked again and again as a portrait of selflessness and humanity among unfathomable evil. Those who knew her said they weren’t surprised by reports she shielded her first-graders from danger.
“She put those children first. That’s all she ever talked about” – said a friend, Andrea Crowell. “She wanted to do her best for them, to teach them something new every day.”
Photos of Soto show her always with a wide smile, in pictures of her at her college graduation and in mundane daily life. She looks so young, barely an adult herself. Her goal was simply to be a teacher.
“You have a teacher who cared more about her students than herself” – said Mayor John Harkins of Stratford, the town Soto hailed from and where more than 300 people gathered for a memorial service Saturday night. “That speaks volumes to her character, and her commitment and dedication.”