Wounded victims recount terrifying escape from killer
Two women who were shot in the back while running away from the gunman who killed three people and injured 13 others at the Gilroy Garlic Festival recalled their harrowing escape Thursday, speaking publicly for the first time since Sunday’s mass shooting.
Brynn OtaMatthews, 23, and Gabriella Gaus, 26, were climbing up an inflatable slide when they heard a single gunshot and looked down at the festival grounds. They saw the shooter — later identified as 19yearold Santino Legan — standing motionless with a weapon that they at first
thought was a BB gun.
When the man began “rapidfire” shooting into the crowds, the women quickly ducked and crawled down the slide, then ran barefoot toward a parking lot, Gaus said. They were both hit as they ran — Gaus grazed on her shoulder and back, and OtaMatthews with a bullet into her back that pierced her liver.
“I felt like I got pinched or burned, a beestingtype thing,” Gaus said. “I just remember saying, ‘I’m hit. I’m hit.’ We didn’t stop running or look back.”
“We were hit at the same time,” OtaMatthews said. “I remember Gabriella screaming she was hit. I felt it in my back and thought maybe I was getting a cramp. It took until I saw blood on my hand to know the reality.”
OtaMatthews, a Santa Cruz resident, and Gaus, of Scotts Valley, shared their story during a news conference at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, where OtaMatthews was treated.
Later in the day, police and FBI officials held a separate news conference in Gilroy, during which they released the names of the three officers who shot and killed the gunman. The officers are Eric Cryar, a 23year veteran; Hugo Del Moral, a 17year veteran; and Robert Basuino, a 13year veteran of the department.
Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee praised the men for quickly engaging with the shooter and potentially preventing many more deaths and injuries. Legan was killed within about a minute of firing his first shot, police said.
“All three of these officers are incredibly humble. I think they’re heroes. I don’t think they view themselves that way, I think they view themselves that they were just doing their job,” Smithee said. “I don’t think they’re particularly excited about being in the limelight, but I certainly think they deserve recognition for what they did.”
In the evening, hundreds of residents gathered in downtown Gilroy for a vigil.
“We need to move forward and start the healing process,” said Mayor Roland Velasco, who was in the triage area Sunday helping shooting victims receive medical care. “Let us focus on a positive thought — a memory of Garlic Festivals in the past or even earlier that day. The excitement of seeing friends you haven’t seen in a while. The memory of good laughs together. Whatever it happens to be, focus on it and hold it close.”
Authorities said they continue to pore over social media and interviews with friends and family of the shooter to try to determine a motive. FBI Special Agent in Charge John Bennett said investigators have received more than 100 videos from the public after a plea for recordings of Sunday’s shooting. Agents are attempting to track the trajectory of every round fired.
Officials also revealed Thursday that they had found one more shooting victim, a person who suffered a graze wound, bringing the total number of injured to 13. As of Thursday afternoon, four people remained hospitalized.
The most recent person to be released was OtaMatthews, who walked out of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Thursday afternoon.
She and Gaus said they were lucky to be among the first victims to get medical attention. A few minutes after they were shot, the women were picked up by a stranger in the parking lot — they only know that his name was John and he had his young son with him — who ushered them into his car and drove them to St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy.
Gaus was treated and released within a few hours, while OtaMatthews was transferred to Santa Clara Valley for emergency surgery that night.
“Probably the two most calm people there were these two,” said Dr. Brian Saavedra, director of emergency medicine at St. Louise. “Gabriella, who suffered several gunshot wounds, some of them in potentially critical locations, was more concerned about her friend Brynn than herself. Her question over and over was, ‘How is she doing?’ ‘Where is she going to go?’ ”
Gaus and OtaMatthews, coworkers at Bantam restaurant in Santa Cruz, were at the festival that day with a group of friends. They had all bought tickets to go on the inflatable slide, which was set up as a sort of obstacle course on the climb to the top.
OtaMatthews and Gaus were partway up the stairs and their friends were waiting at the bottom when the shooting began.
“We both saw him at the same time,” OtaMatthews said. “I remember seeing him being silent and not moving. You see him, and you don’t think it’s real, you don’t know to expect that. It took until Gabriella said, ‘I think he’s going to shoot’ for us to move. It was a terrifying place to be.”
When they got to the bottom of the slide, the women ran in one direction, toward a parking lot, while their friends ran in another. OtaMatthews’ boyfriend found them in the parking lot after they had been shot, and when they came across someone in a golf cart, he flagged it down.
“He said, ‘They’ve been hit, there’s a shooter, can you help us?’ And (the golf cart driver) said, ‘Sure, get on,’ ” Gaus said. “From the golf cart we ran into another vehicle, and it was this man named John. He knew there was a shooter. He took us to the hospital. I think we were one of the first to show up.
“I just want to thank John, wherever he’s at,” Gaus said. “That act of kindness — I didn’t feel safe until I was in a car.”
Though they were both on their feet and looked physically well on Thursday, the women said they are still in pain, and that they don’t yet know what their recovery will look like, physically or emotionally. The bullet that hit OtaMatthews is still in her liver.
“I’m not going to be able to see it, and I won’t be able to feel it at some point,” she said. “It’s always going to be there. I’m going to have a bullet in my liver my whole life.”
Gaus said her physical recovery has gone well so far. But she’s had symptoms of posttraumatic stress, especially when she goes outside. She said her heart will beat faster, or she’ll feel nauseated. Even at
home, sudden movements can startle her.
“I’ve barely left my house,” Gaus said. “I was with someone last night, and he was just bringing my bowl of soup, but he came at me really fast and it took a moment, I was like, ‘Can you get away from me?’ That’s a reaction. I’m just like, what’s that going to look like when I return to work and start doing responsible everyday things?
“You don’t know I’m a victim because my clothes cover my wounds or whatever. But it just feels really sickening to me every time I leave my house,” she said. “Someday I hope to have a positive outlook. But right now, it’s not really there.”
OtaMatthews said she doesn’t have nightmares about what happened to them, “but when I’m awake, it’s always in the back there. It replays all the time.
“Sometimes I have these feelings like I’m so happy that we got away,” she said. “And then sometimes it’s just terror.”
Saavedra said Gilroy’s local hospital had never seen anything like Sunday’s mass shooting, and it hit the staff hard because it’s such a small, tightknit community. He was born and raised in Gilroy, and his family goes back four generations there.
“It doesn’t (just) hit close to home — it’s not just a place where we work — but it hits right smack dab in the middle of our house,” Saavedra said. “There’s moments like these that seem unimaginable. But unfortunately they’re happening too often, too frequent.”
Neither Gaus nor OtaMatthews has health insurance. Crowdfunding accounts have been started for both: OtaMatthews at www.gofundme.com/f/wx56r2brynn and Gaus at www.gofundme.com/f/gabriellagaus.
“It’s always going to be there. I’m going to have a bullet in my liver my whole life.” Gilroy shooting survivor Brynn OtaMatthews
Tatiana Sanchez, Erin Allday, Matthias Gafni and Lauren Hernandez are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: tatiana.sanchez@sfchronicle.com, eallday@sfchronicle.com, matthias.gafni@sfchronicle.com, lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.com