But Mika continued to run.

“We got outside the gate…turned around,” says Ryan Thompson, another staffer, “and Matt’s like, ‘Dude, I’ve been shot.’”

They told him to get down, to lie down behind the Capitol Police’s SUV. So he did. He lay down on the pavement. Special Agent Crystal Griner tried to protect him. She was engaging the shooter. She got shot in the ankle. He got shot again, too, in the arm.

It was hot inside his chest. His Detroit Tigers jersey was open, with blood all the way down. “I have a hole in my chest. Everyone can see my heart.”

Mika never felt either bullet. He stayed on the ground, just trying to breathe. “Time slowed down.”