People standing close to Donald Trump when he was apparently hit by gunshots have spoken about what they saw happened.
One woman, named as Erin, told NBC News that she was stood in the front row and saw the “fresh blood” coming from the former president’s ear.
“The guns came up to start. Clear. Clear right, clear left. They said, ‘get him up’. So they lifted him up. Trump said, I gotta get my shoes on, first. His shoes must’ve come off. We couldn’t see it underneath that but his shoes must’ve come off when they dropped him down to the ground. We could all hear it.
“And when he stood up, I see the red teardrop of blood – fresh red blood. Just a little tear. Then, when they got him up and they turned him, I could see the blood from the top of the ear to the bottom. It wasn’t gushing but it was covered. And then he put the fist bump up, ‘stay strong’, and they walked him off.
Pic: AP
“I thought it was fireworks,” she said. “Pop pop pop. That’s what it sounded like.”
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Erin went on: “His ear must’ve been nipped and it killed somebody in the stands, over to the left.”
She said: “It does appear that he was probably nicked by that bullet and he turned his head just in the nick of time.”
Pic: Reuters
Speaking about her own safety, Erin said: “I was totally not scared… None of us in that front row went down to the ground. Not one. We only wanted to only help the president. That’s all we wanted to do.”
And on her feelings about the incident, Erin said: “It’s just very sad. All of these people who came to see him and they have him hurt.”
She added: “I feel sad for our country – I feel sad for everybody. You don’t like the guy, don’t vote for him. Don’t kill him. We love the guy, we’re gonna vote for him. I mean, what is up with this violence?”
A man named only as Joseph told NBC he was in the third row at the rally and he had earlier told friends that if something bad was to happen then “this would be the perfect place to do it… and it happened.”
He said that people in the crowd at first thought it was a prank, but that he “knew it was a gunshot cos I just saw a guy get hit”.
Describing the “dangerous and deadly situation”, he said: “It sounded more like a firecracker. I knew better – I know what gunshots sound like.”
Joseph said he saw a man hit by a shot in the head and a woman hit in the forearm.
He said he thought people started taking it seriously when the Secret Service jumped the barriers.