Internet Donates $800K To Recovery Of Oregon Shooting Survivor

Following the tragic mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon last week—leaving ten people, including the 26-year-old shooter dead—a campaign for survivor Chris Mintz, who was shot seven times, has emerged – in praise of Mintz’s efforts to save others, and to raise funds for his recovery.

Mintz is likely to remain in a wheelchair for the “foreseeable future“, according to his aunt. 

On the day following shooting, Chris Mintz’s cousin 
Derek Bourgeois launched a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds for Mintz, describing the heroism he put on display:

Yesterday my cousin Chris Mintz was shot 7 times while trying to protect others from the gunman at Umpqua Community College. He is a father, a veteran, a student, and now he’s a hero.

During the shooting both of his legs were broken and he is going to have to go through a ton of physical therapy. While Chris is not the type of person to ask for it, he is going to need all of the help he can get while he recovers!

The campaign has struck a chord internationally, with the original goal of $10,000 far surpassed, and currently sitting at over US$790,000.

GoFundMe—Kickstarter for charitable causes, essentially—has since made a donation of $75,000 to #UCCStrong – the fund supporting all victims and families of the UCC shooting. A White House petition has also cropped up – with 14,000+ signatories in support of Mintz receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom

20-year-old Treven Anspach, who was among the nine victims, has also been recognised as saving the life of Lacey Scroggins, a student who was in a classroom when the lone shooter began his rampage, but who was covered in the blood of Anspach and assumed dead by the shooter, according to Scroggins’ father.

Randy Scroggins spoke to NPR, retelling his daughter’s recount of the experience:

“‘I looked, Dad, I looked under my hand as my face is on my hands, and I’m watching Treven’s blood, and it is flowing towards me. It is all over my shirt, the side of me, my pants, my boots.’ “And then at that time, she said, ‘I heard the shooter over me say, “Get up.”…”

Scroggins claims that Lacey remaining lifeless under Anspach saved his daughter’s life. 

“The blood of that boy, Treven, saved my daughter’s life. I know it as well as I know that I’m sitting here. He will always be the Scroggins’ hero, from this point forward.”

You can donate to victims of the UCC shooting here, or to the recovery fund of Chris Mintz here

via Complex
Image via GoFundMe. 

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