Sen. Rand Paul recounts harrowing moments during Virginia shooting

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ)- U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was at the field during the shooting and talked to ABC News about the attack.

Sen. Paul was not injured in this morning’s attack but describes the shooting as a rampage, with dozens of shots fired and people dropping on the field in front of him.

Sen. Paul says he was in the batting cages on the right side of the field when the first shot was fired.

“The first shot was kind of an isolated shot and everybody kind of looks up and says hey what’s that. And you know I grew up in the south and it’s not that uncommon to hear somebody hunting a shotgun and I thought well you know I’m not in the south, I’m in the city,” said Sen. Paul.

Then moments later, he says dozens of shots rang out and Congressman Scalise dropped to the ground.

“And so he goes down but is moving and is crawling towards the outfield. There was two staff members on the other side of this ten foot fence and I’m behind a tree now right next to the batting cage,” said Sen. Paul.

Sen. Paul says the gunman continued firing more than 50 times.

“And at that point people were dropping and at least one of the staffers may have been hit in right field and another one I said do you want to try to get out and all the sudden he was up and he was over the 20 foot fence in about two seconds,” said Sen. Paul.

The senator says he couldn’t see the shooter and wasn’t sure where he was or if he was coming towards them.

“At that point we decided to make a run for it and he was hitting the dirt around us out in right field so it was a risk to stay and a risk to go but we chose to go ahead and make a run for it. We had to climb a couple more fences at that point to get out,” said Sen. Paul.

Sen. Paul described the scene as horrific saying the gunman was intent on shooting as many people as he could.

“Because even with two professionals returning fire, they were both shot. Both the capitol hill policemen were shot and yet one of them I’m told even being shot in the end was still protecting Scalise in the end,” said Sen. Paul.

Sen. Paul says he believes if it weren’t for the two capitol police officers that were there and returned fire, many more people would have been injured or killed.