'He saved my life': Yoga student hailed a hero for wrestling with gunman

Joshua Quick battled the gunman with a broom. Photos / ABC News

A yoga student is being lauded as a hero for wrestling with a gunman who entered a yoga studio in Florida and began firing.

Joshua Quick spoke to ABC's Good Morning America and said he grabbed Scott Paul Beierle's gun after it jammed, and hit him.

Tallahassee Police have identified Beierle as the man who posed as a customer to get into the studio Hot Yoga Tallahassee during a class at the weekend and started shooting, killing two and wounding six.

Police say Beierle, 40, then turned the gun on himself but authorities have offered no motive in the attack.

Quick said Beierle was able to grab the gun back and then pistol-whip him.

"I jumped up as quickly as I could," said Quick, who had visible facial injuries.

"I ran back over and the next thing I know I'm grabbing a broom, the only thing I can, and I hit him again."

It gave some in the studio time to flee.

"Thanks to him I was able to rush out the door," Daniela Garcia Albalat told Good Morning America.

She was in the class and thought she was going to die. "He saved my life."

Daniela Garcia Albalat said she was able to get away while the gunman was distracted.

Two women — a 61-year-old faculty member at Florida State University, and a 21-year-old FSU student — were fatally shot.

Dr Nancy Van Vessem was an internist who also served as chief medical director for Capital Health Plan, the area's leading health maintenance organisation. She was also a faculty member at Florida State and a mother.

Maura Binkley, who grew up in Atlanta and was a double major in English and German, was set to graduate in May.

Beierle was described as a brooding military veteran and former teacher, who appeared to have made videos detailing his hatred of everything from the Affordable Care Act to girls who'd allegedly mistreated him in school. The videos were posted four years ago, and were removed from YouTube after the shooting.

-AP

'He saved my life': Joshua Quick fought off yoga studio gunman with vacuum cleaner, broom https://t.co/2SmYYtPP1D

— Tallahassee Democrat (@TDOnline) November 4, 2018