Republican candidate Donald Trump is seen with blood on his face surrounded by Secret Service agents as he is taken off the stage at a campaign event. Picure: AFP
A Donald Trump supporter witnessed the former president’s arrival at a Pennsylvania hospital on Saturday following a failed assassination attempt.
Richard Foerster had planned to attend the rally with his wife, Karen. He had bought VIP tickets and arrived early at the field in Butler, Pennsylvania, to secure good spots.
However, the 36°C heat and lack of shade at the rally became too much for Karen, causing her to faint and require transport to the nearby Butler Memorial Hospital.
“There was nothing between us and the stage except a metal barrier,” he said. “I was literally 15 feet [4 metres] from the podium,” he told Fox News Digital. “Around 4:30pm, my wife started feeling dizzy and faint, so we went to get help, and they took her to a cooling tent.”
He said his wife’s “blood pressure spiked,” prompting the medical workers at the event to send her for advanced care in a hospital.
While his wife was receiving treatment in the hospital, Foerster noticed that some of the staff were watching Trump’s rally on a hospital TV and joined them.
He called a friend who was at the rally, but was interrupted when someone told him “Oh my gosh, Trump has been shot.”
Foerster told Fox News Digital that the anguish of Trump being shot caused a nurse to cry and a lady to fall out of her wheelchair.
In a video Foerster took when Trump arrived at the hospital, people are looking out the windows with Foerster saying, “He’s walking, he’s walking. Thank you, Jesus he’s walking.”
Trump was struck in the ear before ducking behind the podium and being rushed by Secret Service agents, who shielded him with their bodies. He was shot by Thomas Matthew Crooks from the roof of a building.
Here’s a transcript by CNN of the audio from the shooting and aftermath at the podium with Trump and Secret Service members:
18:11:33: Shots are fired.
18.11:34: Trump touches the right side of his face.
18:11:35: Trump takes cover as agents rush to the podium.
Male agent 1: “Get down, get down, get down.”
More shots heard as Trump surrounded by agents.
18:11:41: Female agent: “What’re we doing, what’re we doing.” “Where are we going…”
Man indistinctly yelling.
18:11.50: Gunshot, then woman screams.
18:11:58: Male agent 2: “Go around to the spare, go around to the spare.”
18:12:00: Male agent 3 says something like: “Move to the spare, hold, hold, when you’re ready, on you.”
(“Spare” refers to a spare limousine.)
18:12:01: Male agent 2: “Ready”
18:12:02: Male agent 3: “Move!”
18:12:03: Male agent 2: “Up!”
18:12:03: Male agent 3: “Move!”
18:12:04: Male agent 4: “Go, go, go.”
18:12:06: Male agent 2: “Hawkeye’s here.”
18:12:06: Female agent 1: “Hawkeye’s here, moving to the spare.”
(“Hawkeye” is the code name for the counter assault team.)
18:12:09: Male agent 4: “Spare get ready, spare get ready.”
18:12:10: Male agent 2: “You ready?”
18:12:16-21: Agents: “Shooter’s down, shooter’s down, are we good to move?”
18:12:21: Male agent: “Shooter’s down. We’re good to move.”
18:12:22: Female agent: “Are we clear?”
18:12:23: Agents: “We’re clear, we’re clear, we’re clear.”
18:12:23: Male agent: “Let’s move, let’s move.”
Agents start to stand up, lifting Trump.
18:12:33: Trump: “Let me get my shoes, let me get my shoes.”
18:12:35: Male agent 2: “I got you sir, I got you sir.”
18:12:36: Trump: “Let me get my shoes on.”
18:12:37: Another male agent: “hold on, your head is bloody.”
18:12:39: Male agent 2: “Sir we’ve got to move to the car sir.”
18:12:42: Trump: “Let me get my shoes.”
18:12:43: Female agent: “OK, [inaudible].”
18:12:47: Trump: “Wait, wait, wait” then fist pumps to crowd. He mouths “fight” three times – a move met with cheers by the crowd.
18:12:54: Agent: “We got to move, we got to move.”
A man who attended former president’s rally on Saturday described seeing another attendee drop to the ground, dead, after someone shot him in the head.
NBC News spoke with the witness, identified only by his first name, Joseph, who recounted the incident. Joseph said that shots rang out just moments after Trump began speaking and killed a single spectator.
Joseph, who was sitting in a set of bleachers to the far left of the podium, said he heard “several gunshots” ring out. He saw a man a few yards away fall to the bottom of the bleachers after someone shot him in the head.
“It was rather chaotic at that point,” Joseph said, as he tried to figure out where the gunshots were coming from. He believed the shots came from behind the bleachers and that someone hit the man in the back of the head. Joseph said the shots killed the man instantly.
State police and a SWAT team then began evacuating everyone in the bleachers. Joseph said he helped officials carry the dead man off the bleachers to a nearby tent, where officials put a towel over the man’s head before carrying him away.
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