A guest at the White House correspondents’ dinner retained his table manners and was spotted calmly tucking into his salad course on Saturday, soon after gunfire rang out and heavily armed Secret Service agents swarmed into the ballroom of the Washington Hilton hotel.

A video clip captured Michael Glantz, a senior talent agent with the Creative Artists Agency, leisurely forking leaves from his burrata salad into his mouth against a backdrop of a stage just yards away, by then empty of everyone save a rifle-wielding officer in tactical combat gear.

“I’m a New Yorker,” Glantz told the New York Times in a brief interview after Donald Trump was bundled to safety amid a scene of chaos and confusion, and the function ultimately cancelled.

“We live with sirens and activity happening all the time. I wasn’t scared. There are hundreds of Secret Service agents hurtling themselves over tables and chairs, and I wanted to watch.”

By Monday, the hashtag #saladman was trending on social media as Glantz’s coolness under pressure was recognized by a wider audience. “My man,” the author of the original video post, reposted by CNN’s chief media analyst, Brian Stelter, wrote.

Glantz told the New York Times he was asked why he had not sunk to the floor, as everyone else at his table and most others in the ballroom had done.

“First of all, I have a bad back,” he said.

“I couldn’t get on the floor, and if I did get on the floor, they’d have to bring in people to get me off the floor. And I’m a hygiene freak. There was no freaking way I was getting in my new tux on the dirty Hilton floor. It was not happening.”

In a later, snatched interview with TMZ, Glantz said he thought it was “silly” how much attention his determination to eat his salad had garnered, but that he did not mind being laughed at.

Glantz was not the only guest in the ballroom whose actions in the aftermath of the shooting drew attention.

An as-yet unidentified woman was caught on camera surreptitiously helping herself to two unopened bottles of champagne and wine from a table; while another female attender took a selfie of herself clutching a separate bottle of champagne in the background.