fist fights in fourth grade

I broke up my first actual fight today. Before this I'd dealt with your basic "girl" fights - the usual name calling, etc. Today though, I had to break up a real hitting, kneeing the other guy in the groin, throwing things, shoving, kind of fight. Now, perhaps if these kids were kindergarteners or first graders I could have pulled them apart and set them down in time out, but these were some well built fourth graders, almost 5th graders. I'm fairly sure they were as big or bigger than some of my 6th graders when I was student teaching. I outweighed them on a singular basis, but two of them would have outweighed me, and when the 3rd one got involved, well, there was no way I was getting in there and pulling them apart without getting hurt myself. I must say I was absolutely terrified. If they had been paying any attention to my hands or legs, they would have seen them shaking. As it was they didn't really see me, only heard me. And boy did they hear it. It seems when I really mean to yell, I get my point across. (One of the girls in the class came to me after the situation was resolved and told me that I had scared her while I was yelling - so it must have been at least somewhat effective). Basically I yelled at them to sit down. Heaven knows I wanted to smack them, and swear at them (even though I rarely ever curse period). But I kept it contained (aside from the yelling). Basically said to sit down and shut up (without the "shut up" exact phrase) and they were in step 5 (it's part of a program at a number of elementary schools designed to teach self-awareness and monitoring, etc - I'm not sold on it, but it is school wide so any teacher can call them on any behavior and it all gets treated in the same manner, same consequences, same basic rules, etc). Whatever I yelled at them, worked. They got their butts on the ground, and after I got them to actually stop arguing (only took a little more yelling) I called the office and had someone come and pick them up. I didn't want more bloodshed in the hall or to take the chance that they wouldn't go to the office. At that point I truly felt like breaking down and crying. I do not like to yell, and apparently I have the facial expressions to go with the yelling, and it wore me out emotionally. Once the 3 who were doing the fighting were gone, it was pretty easy to get the class doing their math projects. Once I got myself together though, it seems that step 5 is reserved for drugs, guns and such. The definition didn't say specifically fighting, but I wasn't about to go quietly next to them and say that they've chosen step one and have them sit by the wall and think about their choice. I don't think they would have heard me. It wasn't a situation that I could let go on any longer than I could help. If I didn't stop it right away, there was going to be blood, broken furniture, and likely more than 3 kids involved. I don't think I handled it the right way, but there are worse ways too. I hope I never have to do it again. It really did suck.