Buttrey and Felhoelter were both unarmed, and wore the insignias of their respective vocations, indicating their non-combatant status. Soon, Buttrey and Felhoelter heard a KPA patrol approaching, a group of men from the KPA 3rd Division which had infiltrated the US lines. Felhoelter told Buttrey to escape, and although Buttrey was shot and severely wounded in the ankle by KPA fire while running, he was able to get away. Felhoelter then began administering last rites and extreme unction to the wounded as they lay on their litters. From this point, observers from the 19th Infantry's regimental Headquarters and Headquarters Company watched through binoculars from a distance as a patrol of young-looking and possibly untrained KPA troops approached the site of the wounded. The troops were armed with Soviet-made rifles and PPSh-41 "burp guns". As Felhoelter knelt to pray over the wounded US soldiers, the KPA troops shot him in the head and back. They then proceeded to shoot and kill all of the thirty critically wounded soldiers with their automatic weapons before withdrawing into the wilderness.
