Oregon hero took five bullets trying to halt shooter.
An army veteran who was shot at least five times while charging the Oregon shooter in a bid to save his classmates is being hailed as a hero for his efforts.
Chris Mintz, 30, narrowly survived Thursday’s massacre at Umpqua Community College, where he was a student, and has since undergone surgery.
According to Mintz’s aunt, Wanda Mintz, Chris was shot three times as he tried to block the door and keep the gunman out of a classroom.
Her nephew was knocked to the floor, looked back up at the gunman and tried to reason with him.
“He hit the ground and looked up at him and said ‘It’s my son’s birthday, don’t do this,’ ” Wanda Mintz recounted, after speaking to Chris’s girlfriend, who has been by his side at the hospital. “And the guy shot him at least two more times.”
Mintz survived but suffered two broken legs among his wounds and will need extensive physical therapy, according to a gofundme page set up to raise money for him.
“He just tried to do the right thing,” Wanda Mintz said. “That’s just how he is. If he sees someone who needs help, he just helps. He just tried to intervene.”
Mintz’ cousin, Derek Bourgeois, told the Daily Mail that Mintz went after the shooter because “there was no way he was going to stand around and watch something this horrific happen.
“When I asked him how he was doing, he immediately said, ‘People died’ and lost it crying,” said Bourgeois, who lives in North Carolina.
Bourgeois said that, despite being shot several times, none of his cousin’s vital organs were hit.
The veteran, originally from Randleman, N.C., began his day wishing Tyrik, his six-yearold son, Happy Birthday on Facebook.
When he was in the military, Mintz was stationed at Fort Benning, Ga., then moved about nine years ago to a base in the West. He never saw combat, his aunt said.
She said he’s an athlete and was studying body building and nutrition. He left the Army a few years ago and was a parttime student at Umpqua, she said.
In a strange twist of fate, Alek Skarlatos, one of three Americans hailed as heroes for stopping a terrorist attack on a Paris-bound train in August, would have been in class at the Oregon college Thursday but instead was in Los Angeles to rehearse for ABC’s Dancing With the Stars.
Skarlatos, 22, was asked on Good Morning America if he would have taken down the shooter if he had been in the classroom. “I would have tried anyways,” he said.
Skarlatos said he was with Dancing partner Lindsay Arnold when he received a text from a friend about the shooting.