COLORADO STUDENTS' PLEA FOR DYING TEACHER: `HELP, BLEEDING TO DEATH' : FAMILY: SWAT TEAM DELAY COST HERO'S LIFE.

Byline: Dirk Johnson The New York Times

For more than three hours, William Sanders lay dying on a classroom floor.

Terrified students with cell phones called frantically for an ambulance for the teacher, shot twice while helping students flee gunfire in the Columbine High School cafeteria April 20. They used their shirts to bind his wounds. They hung a sign from a window: ``HELP, BLEEDING TO DEATH.'' When rescuers finally arrived about 3-1/2 hours after the first shots were fired, the 48-year-old Sanders died as he was being carried from the classroom.

In the aftermath of last week's carnage, the teacher's family has raised questions about the police response, especially the long wait in sending rescuers into the classroom.

``Some of his daughters are angry,'' said Melody Smith, a sister-in-law of Sanders, who was substituting for a science teacher April 20. ``They feel like, had they gone in and gotten Dave out sooner, he would have lived.''

Law enforcement officials say they did not send the police into the second-floor classroom sooner because they feared the two gunmen still were shooting inside the building. Sacrificing the lives of police officers would not have helped anyone, said Sgt. Jim Parr of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department.

``You just can't run blindly down a hallway, not knowing that you're running by doors that may contain gunmen,'' Parr said. ``They also had bombs they had to deal with.''

He described the mayhem inside the sprawling school: sprinkler systems flooding the halls, ceiling tiles falling down, fire alarms sounding loudly and strobe lights from the alarm system flashing.

``Basically, all the worst things out of a horror movie,'' Parr said.

Now it appears that the two gunmen, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17 - both seniors at Columbine - did all of their shooting, including killing themselves, within a matter of minutes after beginning their assault around 11:25 a.m., said Steve Davis, a spokesman for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. The sound of gunfire inside the building for the next two hours, Davis said, most likely came from the police - ``cover fire'' meant to protect the officers dashing into the building.

Smith said the family does not blame the rescuers themselves, but questions whether law enforcement agencies have an effective policy for such a crisis. Indeed, members of the tactical unit were invited to Sanders' funeral Monday as an expression of gratitude. All of them attended the services, which drew about 3,000 mourners to the Trinity Christian Center here. ``We want them to know we do not blame them,'' she said. ``But the family wants to sit down and ask some questions.''

In the view of the Sanders family, she said, the response to the ambush did not seem to be well-organized. ``It was utter chaos,'' Smith said. ``We want some policies changed, so that this doesn't happen to the next guy.''

Parr said the SWAT team had been going from room to room in the school, breaking down locked doors that had been barricaded by the frightened students. When they reached the science classroom where Sanders, a business teacher and athletic coach, lay dying, he said, the officers rescued 60 students first. After that, two officers started to carry Sanders out. He said the police knew that the condition of Sanders was grave.

``There's only so much you can do,'' Parr said. The police have described Sanders as a hero whose bravery in charging into the panic-stricken cafeteria, then herding about 200 students up the stairs, probably saved the lives of many of them. Sanders took two bullets as he guided students toward the science classroom. With that, he stumbled into the room with blood flowing from his chest, then fell on a desk and broke a tooth.

One student in the classroom, Aaron Hancey, a junior, knew some first aid, and paramedics talked to him on a cell phone about life-saving techniques. As Sanders' temperature fell, the students wrapped the teacher in a blanket. Two boys took off their shirts, twisted them up and pressed them against the wounds in an effort to stanch the bleeding.

Even as the teacher lay dying, students said he tried to comfort them, telling them that everything would be fine.

As he became weak from the loss of blood and seemed as if he were going to pass out, students took his wallet from his pants pocket and held up photographs of his family to try to keep him conscious. But he could scarcely breathe. He said he did not think he could last much longer, then said, ``Tell my daughters that I love them.''

Angela Sanders, one of his three daughters, read an open letter to her father at the funeral service. ``What you did in that school Tuesday was an amazing act of heroism,'' she said. ``The rest of the family and I will make sure your grandchildren never forget you.''

Sanders, a native of Indiana who played baseball at Chadron State University in Nebraska, had been a coach of girls' basketball and baseball teams. Every year he published a sports program with a list of imperatives he called the ``Definite Dozen,'' urging the students to be responsible and loyal.

Pete Mazula, a firefighter whose daughter attends Columbine High School, delivered a letter to the Sanders house Tuesday.

``Because of your selfless act, you saved my little girl,'' Mazula wrote. ``You gave up your life to save hers and because of that I am able to hug and kiss her everyday.''

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) Police SWAT team members march to Columbine High on April 20 to do a final search of the school.

Ed Andrieski/Associated Press

(2 -- color) President and Hillary Rodham Clinton observe a moment of silence Tuesday for last week's shooting victims. Across the Denver area, church bells tolled 15 times for the dead. See Page 12.

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

(3 -- color) Sanders