Apalachee High School math teacher Cristina Irimie was celebrating her birthday with her students the day she and three others were fatally sh*ot in Wednesday’s mass s*hooting.
“She decided to bake a cake and bring pizza to her class the day she died so she could celebrate her birthday with her kids,” grieving friend Corneliu Caprar said.
Irimie and her husband couldn’t have children of their own, so she considered her students her kids, the pal said.
The Romanian-born educator had turned 53 earlier, in August.
The other teacher k*illed that day, Richard Aspinwall, was sh*ot when he went outside his classroom to see what was going on, a family friend told the outlet.
Some of his students ripped their shirts off to try to stop him from bleeding after he was hit, she said.
“His students pulled Ricky back into the classroom and used their own shirts to try to stop the bleeding and save him,” the friend, Julie Woodson, said.
“If he didn’t walk out and take the bullet … who knows what would’ve happened.”
Woodson added that Aspinall’s family wants the world to know, “Ricky was their nucleus, and he died as a hero trying to save his students’ lives.”
Friends of Irimie, who immigrated to the US more than 20 years ago, said she was known for her smile, her vibrant personality and her passion for her teaching — which to her was not just a job, but a calling.
“The first thing you see is her big smile. She was always smiling,” Father Nicolae Clempus, pastor of St. Mary’s Romanian Orthodox Church in Dacula, said.
Clempus said Irimie’s husband is grieving the loss of his beloved wife in private.
“He’s definitely devastated and heartbroken. They were together all the time, having a very nice and beautiful family life,” the priest said.
“There’s no logic in this kind of tragedy,” he said of her senseless de*ath but adding that she would live on in the hearts of her church family and others who knew her.
“We consider her a hero. Somebody that we’re going to remember and look to as a role model for our generations.”
