<p>The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jan 18, 2007 10:28:03 EST</p>
<p>MISSOULA, Mont. -- A Naval Academy midshipman who heard gunfire at a Maryland shopping mall ran toward the sound rather than away from it, and ended up helping a wounded man.</p>
<p>“I just knew that there was a problem and that people probably needed help,” said Roarke Baldwin, 19, of Florence.</p>
<p>He is to receive a Navy Achievement Medal today.</p>
<p>Baldwin was at a book store in the Westfield Annapolis mall in Annapolis when he heard the shots — 13, he learned later. The mall became chaotic.</p>
<p>Baldwin phoned friends with whom he had planned to attend a movie, and told them to stay away. Then, he ran toward the sound of the shots.</p>
<p>“I didn’t even think about the fact that the gunman might still be there,” he said.</p>
<p>Baldwin ran about 100 yards to a food court, where he found a man with gunshot wound to his leg. The man, Christmas shopping with his family, was a Secret Service agent and was armed, Baldwin said. The man identified himself as a police officer and fired back, according to national media reports. The gunman fled. Later, authorities arrested a suspect.</p>
<p>Baldwin pressed against the man’s wound and talked to him, trying to help him remain conscious. After medical workers arrived, Baldwin stayed with one of the man’s daughters and comforted her while investigators interviewed the family.</p>
<p>Baldwin’s parents learned about the award a few days ago.</p>
<p>“I cried,” said his mother, JoAnne Foley, who works in a hospital emergency room. “As a mother, I was proud — and yet I thought, ‘What was he thinking?”’</p>
<p>The Navy Achievement Award is given to junior officers and enlisted personnel for “outstanding professional achievement or leadership.”</p>