Batman victim escaped shooting at a mall weeks earlier

JESSICA Ghawi, who was killed in the massacre, had survived a shooting weeks earlier.

Hauntingly, she wrote about the earlier experience, saying it had shown her the fragility of life and how ‘we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end’.

Jessica, 24, was in a Toronto shopping mall when a gunman ran amok killing one and injuring seven on June 2.

‘Who would go into a mall full of thousands of innocent people and open fire? Is this really the world we live in?’ she wrote afterwards.

‘Gun crimes are fairly common where I grew up in Texas, but I never imagined I’d experience a violent crime first-hand. I’m on vacation and wanted to eat and go shopping.’

She said her sixth sense had saved her life in the Canadian shooting: ‘An odd feeling led me to go outside and unknowingly out of harm’s way.

‘It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around how a weird feeling saved me from being in the middle of a deadly shooting.’

But the aspiring television sports presenter, who moved from San Antonio, Texas, to Denver last year, would not be so lucky in the Aurora cinema with her friend Brent Lowack.

As she took her place before the film she tweeted: ‘Movie doesn’t start for 20

‘Entry wound to

the head’

minutes!’ It would be the last her friends and family would hear from her.

Her brother Jordan said she was shot at least twice by gunman James Holmes.

On his blog, he wrote: ‘Jessica and Brent were seated in the middle portion of the theatre when a device was thrown into the theatre that produced a hissing sound.

‘The theatre than began to fill with smoke which is when patrons began to move from their seats. At that time, shots were fired. Brent then heard Jessica scream and noticed that she was struck by a round in the leg.

‘Brent began holding pressure on the wound and attempted to calm Jessica. It was at this time that Brent took a round to his lower extremities.

‘While still administering first aid, Brent noticed that Jessica was no longer screaming. He looked over to Jessica and saw what appeared to be an entry wound to her head.’

Mr Lowack was shot twice but survived, his father said. He underwent surgery yesterday.

Another survivor posted an image of his blood-stained clothing on the internet.

A bullet grazed Christopher Rapoza’s chest, leaving a clear bullet hole visible on his white T-shirt.

‘I am one of the 50 wounded in the Aurora shooting,’ he wrote on the image sharing site imgur. ‘Here are a few photos of my lucky but nonetheless terrifying brush with death. My thoughts go out to those less fortunate than me.

He also posted a close-up of where the bullet pierced his skin and a picture of him lying in a hospital bed.

He wrote: ‘No one will believe me until I post the picture, but I was there and I was shot... well, grazed really. I’m doing all right just a little shook up.

‘Me and my girlfriend waited until it seemed the shooting was finished so we were some of the last people out of the theatre and there was a lot of blood.’

He also wrote on Facebook: ‘Perry and I were just at a midnight showing of Batman in Colorado when some ****ing psycho decided to open fire. I was grazed in the back with a bullet but am fine. Perry is unscathed.’

Three members of the armed forces were wounded in the shooting and one is unaccounted for, according to the US Department of Defence.