School principal who protected children from man with machete shares her story 23 years later
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Anne Shannon, WGAL
YORK COUNTY, Pennsylvania (WGAL) — Twenty-three years ago this week, a machete-wielding man walked into the North Hopewell Winterstown Elementary School in Red Lion, York County. He ended up hurting six students and three staff members.
The most severely injured was the school principal, Norina Bentzel. She stood between the attacker and the students to protect them.
“I was given a gift on Feb. 2, 2001. That gift was to remain on this earth. I wasn’t taken that day. I could have easily been taken that day, I know that,” Bentzel said.
Bentzel said she saw a stranger slipping inside the school that morning with a parent. He ignored the school security instructions.
Bentzel, who had been heading to the cafeteria, heard a voice inside her head telling her to stop and turn around to see what the man was doing.
She believes that voice was divine intervention and credits it for guiding her through the attack. A few moments later, she found the man heading toward a kindergarten classroom.
“In that moment,” she said, “it was tunnel vision. It was just he and I and I had to stop him. I had to stop him.”
The man, later identified as William Michael Stankewicz, pulled out a weapon. Bentzel believed he wanted to kill her. At one point, he slashed the 2-foot machete he was carrying across her chest. He sliced through the name tag she was wearing, narrowly missing her body. Bentzel eventually subdued Stankewicz by jumping on his back. The whole ordeal took about 25 minutes.
Bentzel was immediately rushed to the hospital. Her two fingers were detached. Her other hand had a large gash. Surgeons told her she’d lost 50 percent of her blood. Norina was transferred to Union Hospital in Baltimore, which specializes in hand injuries.
The community response was overwhelming. Bentzel received hundreds of cards and well wishes.
“So many people that I don’t even know searched me out and one of the first things they say is I was praying for you and my comment is always, ‘And I felt it.'”
Despite her initial hesitation, Bentzel returned to her beloved school two months later. Still, she struggled to understand why Stankewicz would do such a thing. Years later, she said the reaction of the community at the Amish school shooting in Lancaster County moved her.
“I sat there,” she said. “I watched that, and I thought, ‘Oh, wow. If they can do that, there’s no reason I can’t forgive him.'”
So, in 2009, she wrote him a letter offering forgiveness and asking him some questions. Stankewicz refused to read the letter. He died in 2023.
Bentzel sees his death as another chapter in her healing journey. A journey she was inspired to share by writing a book. It’s titled “Glorious Sadness.”
“If there is any glory in tragedy,” she said, “it is in the people who come to rescue you.”
The book is about trauma and loss. It also touches on the gifts and the blessings.
“So many things happened that day that are unexplainable in terms of human understanding,” Bentzel said. “I could have easily been taken that day, I know that. I don’t take that for granted. I try to live each day as if it is a gift because we don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring.”