CHICAGO — Laurie Dann ran into a suburban Winnetka home after shooting six children at the Hubbard Woods Elementary School only half-clothed, brandishing two guns and crying that she had been sexually assaulted.

Dann said that she shot her “assailant” and was afraid police would harm her because of her resistance.

Philip Andrew, who later was shot after trying to comfort Dann, said that at first he believed Dann’s story. She seemed frustrated, but at the same time “rational,” Andrew said on Friday.

Later, Andrew realized that Dann’s story did not make much sense, he said. And it was not until he was taken to Highland Park Hospital, critically wounded, that Andrew learned he had been a hero and Laurie Dann’s last shooting victim.

He is scheduled to released from the hospital on Sunday. At a crowded news conference at the hospital on Friday, Andrew, 20, a University of Illinois swimming star, talked for the first time of the drama that unfolded at the Andrew home at 2 Kent Rd. in Winnetka on May 20. It ended with Dann’s suicide.

It was Andrew’s second day home from school, and he and his mother, Ruth Ann, were sitting in their kitchen. “Laurie came in the back door. The door was open,” Andrew said. “She just came running in. My mother and I thought it was pretty funny at first.”

Their immediate impression was that Dann had been in a water fight, which, Andrew said, is not unusual in the family’s upscale neighborhood.

What was unusual was that Dann had two handguns, which Andrew soon realized were real. “She said she had been sexually assaulted and had run to our house,” said Andrew. “She said she was scared of the police. …”

Andrew said that Dann had a shower curtain and plastic bag wrapped around her waist and a white tank top over her abdomen.

He said Dann became nervous after he grabbed one of her guns, a .22 caliber pistol, but calmed down after he removed the magazine.

Andrew’s father, Raymond, later entered the room, and the young man said he explained the situation and continued trying to talk Dann into giving up the second gun. “I had my arms around her,” said Andrew, who said he told Dann he knew how “the system” works and that she need not fear the police. But Dann would not give up her gun, he said.

Andrew’s parents later left the house, and as police drew closer to the home, Andrew said, “She raised the gun and said she wanted me to stay.

“I was leaning up near the microwave,” he said. “I had made no move, and she shot me point-blank. …

“I dove around the corner into the pantry and put the magazine back into the Beretta (that he had taken from Dann). Then I (pointed the gun to cover) myself and went to the driveway and put the gun down.”

He was the last person to see Dann, 30, alive, and except for Dann’s suicide, Andrew’s shooting ended a nightmarish morning of shooting, arson, arsenic poisoning and murder by Dann.

Andrew said he was stunned when he realized Dann had terrorized the Hubbard Woods school.

“I was amazed,” he said. “It was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe I tried to help someone who had shot six people.”

U.S. Rep. John Porter, R-Ill., paid tribute to Andrew on Friday as an “authentic hero.”

Andrew said he does not see himself as a hero. “I acted. I don’t think I did anything heroic.”

Andrew said he now sees Laurie Dann as “a sick individual who knew what she was doing.”