What cameraman Adam Ward did in his final seconds may have saved many lives.

This morning, we woke to the horrible news from the US of the senseless slaying of a local TV news reporter and cameraman during a live broadcast.

It was a shockingly cruel and callous crime.

To fatally shoot reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward while they were going about their job, and to injure their interview subject simply because she had the misfortune of being present, requires a heartlessness beyond imagination.

It was not an off-the-cuff attack. It was meticulously planned.

Not only did 41-year-old gunman Vester Lee Flanagan track down the location of Parker and Ward, but he filmed the horrific shooting as it played out.

Read more: Reporter and camera operator shot dead live on air.

He stood with the gun trained on an unsuspecting Parker mid-interview and waited until Ward panned the camera around to frame the interview during a live cross before firing the gun.

He knew the drill. He had worked with them both before, after all.

The footage – which Mamamia has chosen not to publish – reveals the sheer terror on Parker’s face as she realises what is happening and tries to escape, and the pandemonium as Flanagan repeatedly pulls the trigger.

But it is the cameraman’s final decision – to face the camera towards the gunman as he fell – that cut short the killer’s much-anticipated time in the spotlight and possibly saved the lives of others.

As AM reported:

“As he fell cameraman Adam Ward turned his camera towards the gunman. It was a critical final decision as his colleague Jean Jadhon explained later on air.” 

We will never know if it was intentional, but either way Ward provided police with a chilling image of his killer before Flanagan’s social media tirades caught the attention of authorities.

By that stage, they had identified Flanagan, a former reporter with the same Virginian news station, WSBJ7, who used the name Bryce Williams professionally.

As police, given the upper hand by Ward’s footage, closed in on the armed killer fleeing in a rental car on an interstate highway, Flanagan – determined to control his fate – killed himself.

The graphic and disturbing footage of the final frightening minutes of a dedicated news team will be splashed on TVs and news sites for days to come. But the dedicated duo should be remembered by more than the chilling and cruel way in which their lives were cut short, far too early.

The outpouring of grief shows both Parker and Ward were deeply loved by their respective partners, friends, families and colleagues.

They should be remembered for that. For their engaging natures and warm smiles. And for the brave act of journalism that helped police track down their killer before he could destroy more lives.

We are thinking of the victims and their loved ones today.