Editor’s note: This story contains details of a mass casualty event and gun violence.
A month after a school shooting took the lives of three teammates and wounded him and another student, Virginia football player Mike Hollins, who was also shot, spoke publicly for the first time to recount the tragic night with Good Morning America‘s Michael Strahan on Thursday.
Hollins was shot in the back and underwent multiple surgeries before eventually being released from the hospital after a weeklong stay. The shooting occurred on a charter bus as a group of students were returning from a field trip in Washington, D.C. Virginia players Lavel Davis Jr., Devin Chandler and D’Sean Perry were killed.
Hollins recalls that, when the shooting began, he and another teammate were able to leave the bus before he turned back to offer help.
“I turned back and I looked over my shoulder, and I realized we were the only two running,” Hollins said. “I didn’t really think much in that moment, it was just literally an instinct and a reaction to go back.”
Once he made it back to the bus, Hollins came face to face with the shooter, former Virginia football player Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. Hollins said he didn’t know Jones, and that Jones didn’t say anything before firing his gun at him.
“I felt so hopeless and so powerless in that moment … We locked eyes, and that was it,” Hollins said. “It was just a cold look. It was like a numb look.”
Hollins credited a pre-med student that he found after being shot with helping keep him stable before paramedics arrived on the scene.
“I felt him hit me in my back, but I just … I knew I wasn’t going down without a fight. And I found a pre-med student, and that was God again. She was there to help me, she kept me calm, kept my breathing under control. She was checking my pulse until the ambulance came.”
Hollins said that he didn’t learn of his teammates’ deaths until days later after he underwent surgeries for his wounds.
“I’ve never cried like that before. I mean, I lost a brother that day,” Hollins said, fighting back tears. “I loved Lavell with all my heart, loved Devin with all my heart. But DeSean, it was different with him. That was my brother. It was tragic hearing that he was gone.”
Still dealing with the trauma of the event, Hollins said he now feels more open to discussing his emotions than he was before. He also hopes to carry on the legacy of those who were lost.
“I’ve never been as vulnerable or emotional. Now … I’m not afraid to tell my friends or my teammates, ‘I love you, looking forward to seeing you again,’ and really meaning it now.
“I’m still doing it for the people I love, for the people that were on that bus,” Hollins said. “Everything I do from here on will be in their name and their light. I just want to do as much as I can to keep their flame lit.”
