No greater love; her hero saved her life

‘He Provided Me the Opportunity to Survive’: Woman Describes How Military Boyfriend Took a Bullet for Her During Shooting

• Posted on July 21, 2012 at 10:50am by Madeleine Morgenstern

Image source: NBC

A woman who survived the deadly Aurora, Co. movie theater shooting said her military member boyfriend laid on top of her during the gunfire, taking a bullet and sacrificing his own life to save hers.
Jansen Young said she didn’t realize at first what was happening when alleged gunman James Holmes opened fire on the theater where she was seeing “The Dark Knight Rises” with boyfriend Jon Blunk, according to NBC’s “Today.”
She described an object first sailing into the theater over the audience, which police have said contained an unknown gas.
“It flew up behind us…and it just went boom,“ Young said Saturday on ”Today.”
When the shooting started, she said Blunk immediately shoved her to the ground.
“He pushed my hips to the floor and he’s like, Jansen, Jansen get down and stay down,” she said. “He kind of pushed me in under the seat and pushed on me real hard and he was laying up against me, he kind of whispered in my ear, ‘There’s someone with a gun and he’s shooting people.’”
“I didn’t know, but he knew immediately that it was real,” she said.

The Pentagon said Friday that one sailor and two airmen were wounded in the shooting, and that one sailor was unaccounted for. Their names have not been officially released. A total of 12 people were killed in the shooting and dozens other injured.
Young said that even as the shooting was happening, she had a hard time believing it was real.

Image source: NBC"It was scattered," she said. "I would think it was real for a minute and then I would kind of change my mind and be like no, this can't be real, these people are acting, this can't be real."

Young said there was a woman in the row above her screaming “I’ve been shot, I’ve been shot” and said she felt wetness on her body, which she later realized was blood.
“I didn’t really know what that was, and then it was like a whole bunch of wetness everywhere and I started thinking this is — that’s definitely a water balloon, that’s too much wet to be anything but a water balloon.”
She said someone stepped on her on their way out screaming “Jessie’s been shot!’”
Young said it wasn’t until she tried to get out of the theater herself that she realized Jon was lifeless.
“I tried to shake him and was saying his name, and like Jon, Jon we’ve got to go,” she said. “I kind of poked my head up at that point and realized oh my gosh, nobody’s in here, it’s just us. There were like a few other heads here and there I could see leaving the theater but really the theater was empty…that’s when I got out and I kept thinking that was…oh my gosh, I think Jon just took a bullet for me.”
“I was thinking about what a great hero he was and he provided me the opportunity to survive,” she said. “He wasn’t just a hero last night, he has been a hero forever,” she said.
She said Blunk had planned to re-enlist in the military, telling her once, “Jansen, I was born to serve my country.”
“He was re-enlisting it was just what he wanted to do and he loved it,” she said. “He saved me and he gave me the opportunity to live, he would have done it for anyone that day…that’s just who he was.”
Young said she doesn‘t know what she’s going to do now.
“I can’t fathom not coming home to Jon,” she said. “I don‘t even know at this point if I’m willing to stay in Colorado. Three days ago I was coming back to Colorado because I was going to live with Jon, be with Jon. What am I coming back here for?”