Colorado Springs LGBTQ club shooting victim shot 7 times shares story
"I'm still waiting to wake up from a bad dream," said North Carolina-native Barrett Hudson.
Just weeks after moving to Colorado, Hudson decided to check out the nightlife, visiting Club Q with a friend Saturday.
"This was actually my first time out in Colorado Springs at night," Hudson said.
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But when a sound Hudson describes as balloons popping cut though the music, he turned to see a gunman inside the club.
"I saw some dude put his hands up like this," Hudson demonstrated, "and take a step or two back and the shooter just 'pop, pop, pop,' and just murdered him."
Then, pandemonium ensued. Hudson took off running toward a back exit, but couldn't escape the shooter.
"I got shot, I fell, I got back up, I'm still getting shot," Hudson said.
Hudson scrambled through the doors, hopped a fence and ran to a nearby 7/11 screaming for help. There, someone called 911 and examined his wounds.
"They started counting the bullet holes and they got up to five," Hudson said, "I thought it was over."
In the chaos, it took nearly 30 minutes for an ambulance to come. Hudson called his dad to tell him he loved him, as bystanders tried to flag down emergency vehicles.
When responders finally arrived and brought Hudson to the hospital, he learned he'd been shot seven times. Miraculously, none of the bullets had struck his spine, arteries or major organs.
"Saturday night I thought I was dead. Sunday, I thought I would never walk again. Tuesday, I'm walking," Hudson said.
Shocked, overwhelmed, and grateful to be alive, he expects to be released from the hospital within a day. With three bullets still inside him, he has a smile on his face as he begins the road to healing.
"This is something that's going to stay with me forever in life and the bullets will be right there with it and I'll never forget," Hudson said.
Hudson will go home to North Carolina to recover and spend the holidays with his family, but then he's coming back to give Colorado another try. He says he won't let the shooting haunt him, and he's amazed by the outpouring of support he's received.
"There's definitely more love than hate out there," Hudson said.
