The teacher wounded in the Indiana school shooting this morning has been identified as Jason Seaman.

The seventh-grade science educator has been at Noblesville West Middle School for four years and was administering a test to students when the suspected shooter entered the classroom and opened fire.

Mr Seaman’s mother, Kristi J Hubly Seaman, posted about her son on Facebook. She wrote: “Please pray for my son Jason...He was hit 3 times & is undergoing surgery now. We are told he is in good condition but haven't gotten to see him yet. I thank God that no one was killed”. She later followed up with another post saying her son was out of surgery and “doing well”.

He was shot once through the abdomen, once in the hip, and once in the forearm. Ms Seaman added: “please pray for the student that was also shot”.

Mr Seaman also served as an American football coach for the students for the past two years.

“She kept saying, ‘I saw my teacher get shot,’” Jeremie Lovall told the IndyStar newspaper, whose daughter was in Mr Seaman’s classroom.

A student in the class, Ethan Stonebaker, told ABC News that Mr Seaman immediately ran at him, swatted a gun out of his hand and tackled him to the ground," Stonebraker said. "If it weren't for him, more of us would have been injured for sure”.

The chief of police Kevin Jowitt said: “The preliminary info is that a male student asked to be excused. He returned with two handguns. We are still conducting interviews to find out what happened in that classroom”.

A neighbour of Mr Seaman, Steve Vedder, told the Indy Star that the teacher has two young children, adding: "he's a hero in my mind”.

Noblesville is approximately 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Indianapolis and has 50,000 residents. The middle school has about 1,300 students who were getting ready to end the school year next week.