Oregon Shooting Hero Recounts His Terrifying Experience In Facebook Post

Chris Mintz, the veteran and hero who threw himself in front of the Oregon college shooter, has released his recollection of the events of that tragic day. Instead of giving an interview to a media outlet, however, Mintz has posted his story to Facebook. It reveals he did a lot more that day than step in front of the shooter's gun: He ran all over the campus helping to evacuate students and faculty. Mintz begins by saying it seemed like a normal day. He also jokingly threatened to skip his Writing 121 class. Mintz explains that the shooter was in the classroom next door to his and when they heard screaming and shots fired, he and his classmates ran down the hall to get away. Mintz stopped to help evacuate students from the library, sending them and his classmates from the building as far away as possible. He recalls stopping a girl who had just showed up to school by telling her there was a shooter and how her face changed dramatically into a mask of fear. "This is when I started making my way towards the classroom, I was walking slower, but as fast as I could, because I didn’t know where he was," Mintz writes. "I got to a classroom and looked into the door because it had a glass slate, a guy that was further away and hiding behind cars startled me and yelled, 'Don’t man, he's going to shoot you man.'" Mintz recounts stepping into the classroom anyway, over the body of Kim Diezt, where he saw two people. He did not realize it was actually a room full of people who were hiding. Mintz yelled for another student to get the cops and send them over, which is what drew the attention of the shooter to him. "All of a sudden, the shooter opened the classroom door beside the door to my left, he leaned half of his torso out and started shooting as I turned toward him," Mintz writes. "He had a black shirt on, a shaved head, was tan, and wearing glasses, he was so nonchalant through it all, like he was playing a video game and showed no emotion. The shots knocked me to the ground and felt like a truck hit me. He shot me again while I was on the ground and hit my finger, and said, 'That’s what you get for calling the cops,' and I laid there, in a fetal position unable to move, and responded, 'I didn’t call the cops, man, they were already on the way.'" After that, Mintz says he pled with the shooter for his life by telling him it was his son's birthday. He says the shooter pointed the gun at his face but retreated into the classroom instead of shooting. "I’m still confused at why he didn’t shoot me again," Mintz writes. Mintz, unable to feel or move his legs, had to wait for the police to arrive and take him to the hospital. He says that when the first EMT arrived on the scene, he felt a rush of emotion: Everyone was going to be all right. Mintz's family have set up a GoFundMe campaign to help with his medical bills.