“GET down,” a man to my right shouted.
“Get the f*** down!” And that’s when it dawned on us that it was for real.
I was 50 metres from the stage when shots rang out, in the middle of Donald Trump’s adoring crowd.
High-velocity rifle bullets don’t sound like the gunfire you hear in the movies.
It was, instead, a volley of cracks, like whip lashes, followed by a second burst as the Secret Service snipers fired back.
We threw ourselves to the ground.
“Oh my God,” another man cried.
“Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, they’ve got him,” a woman close by repeated again and again.
A few moments later, when it felt like the immediate danger had passed, many of us stood up to look for Trump, but he was still down.
Eventually, he was hauled back on his feet by bodyguards. His trademark MAGA red cap had been knocked off but there were no red patches on his crumpled white shirt.
His supporters erupted in cheers of relief when the 45th President raised his fist in the air.
A bullet had sliced through Trump’s right ear. It was an extraordinary escape.
A few centimetres to the right, and he would have been dead before he hit the ground. Secret Service agents and police screamed, a man to my right shouted at us to leave as fast as possible.
I filed out of an exit to the stage’s right, just as Trump sped away amid an array of sirens, black 4x4s and motorbikes, kicking up dust.
A few feet from their path, a medical team worked hard on someone they had laid out on the grass.
Bandages and plastic gloves were strewn over the ground.
The dawning horror of an attempted assassination of their presidential nominee and the killing of one of their own hit Trump supporters in different ways.
A woman with long, dyed blonde hair ran passed me, hysterical. “I’m sick of this country and all this s*t,” she shouted at nobody in particular. “It has to stop.”
A middle-aged man in a MAGA cap was berating the Secret Service: “What were they doing allowing a shooter that clean shot? Someone is going to get their arse kicked.”
DONALD Trump was shot at his Pennsylvania rally on July 13.
1pm: Doors open at the Butler Farm Show grounds where Trump was expected to speak at 5pm.
4:11pm: Sean Parnell gave the opening speech.
4:35pm: David McCormick rallied the crowd.
5:30pm: Crowds were still waiting for Trump.
6:03pm: Trump takes the stage.
6:11pm: Gunshots were fired as Trump delivered remarks.
6:12pm: Trump was ushered off stage by Secret Service agents.
6:42pm: Secret Service confirmed Trump is safe.
7:24pm: The shooter and one rally attendee are confirmed dead by law enforcement officials.
8:42pm: Trump confirms he was shot in the ear, sharing a statement on Truth Social.
8:49pm: The Secret Service confirms the shooter and a rally attendee are dead. Two others remain critically injured.
Friends Lisa Reynolds, 55, and Debbie Jacob, 57, had driven 40 miles from Pittsburgh to see Trump.
Lisa said: “We were about 150 yards from the shooter. We didn’t see him, but we heard the pops and saw the smoke from his fire.”
Debbie added: “This is a sad day for America, and for the family who suffered the loss. There is too much hatred in this country.”
Others were vengeful. One young man shouted at me: “This is CNN. This is Biden who paid for this to happen. They’ve done this to him and they won’t get away with it.”
Trump’s assassination attempt in Butler on Saturday has pushed the country to a pivotal moment.
It will either bring Biden’s liberals and Trump’s conservatives closer together, or take them to a place even darker than today.
We’ll find out in the coming days.
