Survivors from the 'Dark Knight' Colorado Theater Shooting Tell Their Stories
"Dark Knight" theater survivors recount the shooting in Aurora
— -- Witnesses to the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., have been telling ABC News what they saw, heard and felt -- and how they escaped gunman James Holmes -- beginning this morning on "Good Morning America." Here are a few of the survivors:
Chris Ramos on "Good Morning America"
First we thought it was part of the movie, you know, to pump everyone up for the new Batman movie. Smoke was up in the air and we thought it was like O.K. probably, something like a bat, but then next it explodes, and then from there we hear two big 'bam, bam' like fireworks. We thought it was part of the movie or probably somebody doing a prank, but then from there I see a guy right next to me, a gentlemen that is sitting right next to me, getting shot and then that is when I realized that this is not like part of the movie, there is a gun man and he is shooting everyone.
He shot easily like 60 or 70 rounds. It was unbelievable and honestly there is nothing I can say for the viewers that are watching this to make them understand what me and also my sister and what everyone else in there went through. It was a horrific scene.. No emotions can explain it and honestly… And honestly, I am never going to forget this night at all because it was the first time I saw something that was real, like a real-life nightmare that was there and not dreaming of.
The first thing that you heard is the smell of the tear gas and then you heard gun shots from the rear of the movie theater, you hear 'bang, bang, bang, bang' just really loud. Everybody started screaming. Just turned into chaos. And everybody was just trying to get down and get out. Everybody at first, when the thing exploded, everybody just thought it was, not necessarily special effects, that go along with the movie. Shortly after, that's when the gun shots started.
He's crying, people are running all over. He's crying. I look up to see if I can run. I'm ducking, dodging, turning left, turning right. I'm just disoriented after I put him down. I'm just waiting for me to hit the ground and fall down dead. You could see the gunfire… [I just said], I'm not going to die in here. My kids are not going to die in this building. I'm just happy that we got our kids out. It was so hard sitting in the hospital. ... Thinking of all the people that we saw. Hoping and praying that they got out.Where the gunman came in, we were going to sit right there. God was definitely with us and watching over us.
At that point he has a rifle in my face and, really, like three feet away from me with a rifle in my face, and I honestly did not know what to do at that point. I knew that I had about a five-second window to be able to do something or to be able to move, so I dove forward into the aisle and I tucked myself underneath the chair and hid myself, and he ended up shooting someone behind me and all the bullet casings kept falling on my forehead and they were like singeing my forehead.
It almost seemed like fun to him honestly. It just seemed like a game to him, like some big plot and I'm pretty sure that he planned the whole thing out. But honestly, it seemed like one big scheme to him and he was just having fun just killing innocent people and moms and dads and I was crying and hysterical at that point. I couldn't stand to see people just getting killed for no particular reason. I mean he was 24 and I am 22 and there is not a big gap of age, but I still don't see any reason for someone like that to just massacre innocent people like that.
Unidentified Witness on "GMA," speaking by phone
Well, about 15 minutes into the movie, there was a shoot-out scene in the movie, it was taking place in a bar where all the criminals were like shooting each other, and out of nowhere I just heard this really loud pop noise. It sounded kinda like a firework, like a firecracker. That's what I thought it was at first. And then soon after that multiple pop noises like 'pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop…' Yeah, it was, it was crazy. A lot of people thought it went with the movie like it was special effects or something. For the premier it was just crazy. I just couldn't believe it. It was unbelievable. There was chaos; there were people screaming. And at one point I even saw this man who was crawling on all fours and he had been shot in the back. And his entire torso was just bloody. I couldn't even believe what I was seeing.