RAN TOWARD ‘FIRE’

A survivor of the deadly shooting at the University of Virginia recalled the frenzied moments after the gunman opened fire, injuring him and one other student and taking the lives of three of his friends.

Mike Hollins, a Baton Rouge, La., native and running back on the Cavaliers football team, was on the bus returning to campus from a field trip to Washington, DC, Sunday night. When he first heard the gunfire, he thought it was balloons popping.

Once he saw the alleged gunman, former walk-on player Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. (inset), Hollins initially fled the bus with two others, only to turn around to try to rescue his teammates.

“His classmates are grateful for him because they said he saved their lives,” his mother, Brenda Hollins, told ESPN Thursday. “He was the first off the bus and told two of his classmates to run, and he went back.

“He said, ‘Mom, I went back. I needed to do something. I was going to beat on the windows because no one else was coming off the bus.’ He said, ‘I was going to beat on the windows. I was going to go on the bus and tell them to come on, get off.’ ”

Jones allegedly then shot Hollins in the back. Hollins was eventually transferred to UVA Medical Center, where he remained Thursday.

“I was devastated,” Brenda said of the first time she saw her son in the hospital early Monday morning. “Just walking into his room, I saw his feet first and they weren’t moving. And then I hear the machines and I just see him lying there. He was on the ventilator. The worst thing that I could have ever imagined to see in the world.”

Though Hollins is now out of intensive care and was no longer on a ventilator after two surgeries, “he’s having a hard time,” his mother said.

“He doesn’t know why everything happened, why he was shot one time, why he is here and not his friends,” she explained, referring to her son’s slain teammates, Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr., and D’Sean Perry. A fifth victim, Marlee Morgan, was reportedly in good condition.

Hollins was not informed of his friends’ deaths until after his second surgery on Tuesday.

“We couldn’t tell him because we needed his vitals to stay where they were because he had surgery coming up,” Brenda said. “They didn’t want any complications.”

Hollins’ family delivered the devastating blow after he came out of the procedure with no complications.

“He was waiting. Right after they removed the ventilator, I heard him say, ‘Thanks, doc.’ I hadn’t heard him talk, so it was just a blessing to hear his voice,” his mother said.

Special bond

“As soon as we walked in, that was his question: ‘Where is D’Sean?’ He knew. My daughter was standing closest to him, and he looked at her. She shook her head. She said, ‘He’s gone.’”

“It was like he was alone in that moment,” Brenda said, remembering her son’s agony learning about his friends’ fates. “We were there, but he was alone.”

Hollins and Perry, his mother explained, were both juniors and shared a special bond.

“‘Mike, you’re going to live for them,’” Brenda said she told him. “‘You’re going to live for him.’ ”

Neither Hollins’ mother nor his coaches were surprised by his selfless actions Sunday.

“It would surprise me if he didn’t [go back to help],” Brenda said. “That’s who Mike is, so it didn’t surprise me.”

“He’s the kind of young man that cares about everybody else,” coach Tony Elliott agreed. “He had other teammates on the bus, and he was going back for his teammates . . . He didn’t care if he put himself back in harm’s way, but he was going back to check on his teammates.”

The Post previously reported that alleged shooter Jones, 22, was known to Charlottesville, Va., police since September. He was being held without bail on seconddegree murder and gun charges.