Dana Mitchell pretended to be dead in the hopes that her former mentee Connor Sturgeon wouldn’t shoot her again’ Louisville bank shooter’s former mentor revealed she pretended to be dead after being shot in order to survive the massacre.
Dana Mitchell pretended to be dead in the hopes that her former mentee Connor Sturgeon wouldn’t shoot her again
Dana Mitchell, who has already been discharged from the hospital, was in the conference room when Connor Sturgeon, 25, rushed in and started firing an AR-15. Five of Dana’s coworkers were killed in the incident.
Sturgeon’s mother dialled 911 to alert police on Monday, April 10 that her son had armed himself with a gun that she assumed he had stolen from his girlfriend. However, by the time she placed the call, Connor had already begun his rampage at the Old National Bank.
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Who is Dana Mitchell?
Dana Mitchell, who mentored the young graduate during his first year at the company, was shot in the back. As chaos erupted all around, she lay on the ground trying not to breathe or move. “The bullet went in and out just below the surface,” she told CBS News. “It was high enough up that it ripped the skin open. It was a wound about 10 inches long but didn’t hit anything important.”
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‘I tried not to breathe’
She pretended to be dead in the hopes that her former mentee wouldn’t shoot her again. “I tried not to breathe a lot. I didn’t want to move around. I didn’t want him to see me moving or hear me breathing, because I thought he might shoot me again,” she stated. “I never imagined this would happen at my place of work or to me. You see it on TV and it happens to other people but it doesn’t happen to people you know. But this is one of those things.”
Sturgeon fled the meeting space and kept shooting, killing Deana Eckert, 57, Joshua Barrick, 40, James “Jim” Tutt, 64, Thomas Elliot, 63, and Juliana Farmer, 45. He then opened fire on police, striking Officer Nickolas Wilt in the head. The officer, who had just received his badge 10 days earlier, is still in critical condition.Â
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‘We had nowhere to run’
Mitchell, who supervised Sturgeon during his first year, was startled to see her former protege carry out the attack, noting he “never made me feel like he would have done this.” “Not in a million years,” she told CBS News. “He was very kind and soft-spoken. You would never had thought this would have happened.” She went on, “When I saw him in the hallway with the gun I thought, why would he bring that here to show us? It didn’t even register to me he was ready to shoot. Everybody there but one person was in a conference room for a meeting.” Everyone started fleeing, Mitchell recounted, after seeing him shoot the individual in the corridor. “But we had nowhere to run,” she added. She then lay down on the ground and tried to appear dead before she was shot a few seconds later.Â
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‘He was not terminated’
Mitchell denied the claims that Sturgeon had taken revenge for being let go by the bank. She told CBS News, “He was not terminated, he was still an employee.” She added, “I don’t know where that rumor came from.”
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‘Thank god she survived!’
Meanwhile Mitchell’s friends and family have been sending her prayers on Facebook. A friend wrote, “I just received word that my beautiful friend (on my left) was shot in the back at the bank shooting in Louisville. Thank god she survived! Please hold her up in prayers for healing both mental and physical. Love you Dana Mitchell.” “After positive results from blood work and her being an all around badass, my Mom was released from the hospital today. She is very sore but doing well. Her phone has been at the bank and hopes to start reaching out herself tomorrow,” a family member wrote. “Thank you to all that have reached out in any and all ways imagineable. Please continue to send the prayers, vibes, positive energies and thoughts to the victims and families of the events yesterday.”
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