Chris Mintz, a 30-year-old Army vet, produced heroic acts in Thursday’s shooting spree at an Oregon community college.
The native of North Carolina took five bullets defending fellow students and classmates. At one point, after getting shot three times at close range, Mintz looked up at the shooter, Chris Harper-Mercer and told him “today’s my son’s birthday.” Harper-Mercer pumped two more shots into Mintz.
Shortly after his clash with Mintz, Harper-Mercer met his end in a shootout with the police.
There’s a commercial for Army recruitment showing a massive black cloud and fire in a dessert. The scene looks ominous and as the camera pulls away soldiers are running into the nightmare. Mintz certainly fit that image.
“He ran to the library and pulled the alarms and he was telling people to run, grabbing people, telling them, ‘You just have to go,'” witness Hannah Miles told ABC News. “He actually ran back towards the building where the shooting was and he ran back into the building and I don’t know what happened to him.”
One family member said: “He’s going to have to learn to walk again, but he walked away with his life.”
