Siblings nominated for 2014 Pride of Australia Child of Courage medals for tackling intruder who shot their mum, Rachael Moore

TWO boys have been hailed as heroes after risking their lives to save their wounded mother when she was shot by a gunman.

TWO boys have been hailed as heroes after risking their lives to save their wounded mother when she was shot by a gunman.

One of the boys, aged 12, leapt off the bed and elbowed his mother’s alleged attacker “in the guts’’ before seizing the shotgun and running outside to hide the weapon under the Chambers Flat house.

His 14-year-old brother then applied a chokehold on the man when he allegedly grabbed their bleeding mother and tried to gouge her eyes.

Rachael Moore, who is still recovering from horrific gunshot injuries, remembers sensing “little hands trying to help me” before her nine-year-old daughter helped lift her up and lead her out of the bedroom.

The youngest boy – aged just four – took his two-year-old sister and hid under a bed.

“I’m alive and I know it’s because of them,” Ms Moore told The Courier-Mail.

For their astonishing heroism, the five siblings have been nominated for 2014 Pride of Australia Child of Courage medals.

Ms Moore and her kids had only just arrived home on the night of April 11 when she heard a car screech into their driveway.

“I gave my phone to my son Jayden and said call the police if anything happens because I just knew this wasn’t good,” she said.

When the man proceeded to smash his way in the front door, she fled into the bedroom with her children and locked the door. He forced it open and she warned him that she was on the phone to the police.

He left, returning moments later allegedly brandishing a shotgun.

“I had myself positioned so if he changed direction towards my kids on the bottom bunk, I could throw my body on them,” said Ms Moore, who has also been nominated for a Pride of Australia Courage medal.

The gunman allegedly pulled the trigger, firing a shot that sprayed pellets into her left arm.

“It all went in slow motion,” she recalled.

“As (the shot) got halfway, my son Jayden’s face popped into view, and I was watching him, and he was screaming, ‘mum’.”

“The next minute, I felt like somebody had punched me.”

As she fell to the ground, her son Cameron sprang from the bed and attacked the armed man.

“Instinct (kicked in) and I jumped forward, elbowed him in the gut and took the gun off him,” the 12-year-old said.

“I ran out and hid (the gun) under the veranda.

“Then when I went back into the room the man was trying to gouge mum’s eyes out and was starting to choke her.”

Ms Moore said she remembered waking up to hands around her throat.

“Then I remember little hands trying to help me – and thinking, ‘oh god, kids just get out of here’,” she said.

Cameron said he struck the attacker on the temple before his brother Jayden, 14, put the man in a chokehold. She said the two boys, who are actors, had been taught some moves previously in a fight choreography class.

A man has been charged with a string of offences including attempted murder, unlawful possession of weapons and common assault.

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