Aaron Boudot thought he was going to die.
It was July 26, and moments before, Boudot had protected his wife from the blade of a stranger during a frightening knife attack in a Michigan Walmart. Then, that stranger, later identified as Bradford James Gille, began to cut it, cutting an artery in his right arm and stabbing him on his back, Bouudout recalled.
“I lost three liters of blood in less than 40 seconds,” said Boudot, 41, in his first interview about the massive stabbing that left 11 people injured. “I wasn’t going to last long. I said goodbye.”
Thanks to another stranger who quickly tied a tourniquet “in the exact right place,” Boudot said, those farewells were premature.
Boudot remembered his experience close to death when NBC News obtained a security video of the interior of the city of Traverse Walmart that shows the suspect running through the store with a large green bag tied behind him. It seems that it hits customers who, in some cases, can be seen falling to the ground.
The victims were between 29 and 84 years old. Nine were treated and released, the installation that treated them said in a statement earlier this month. Two were treated and transferred. Everyone is expected to survive their wounds.
Gille, 42, declared herself innocent of terrorism and assault positions with the intention of killing. He is detained in a psychiatric center and has a $ 1 million bonus, and is scheduled to appear at a hearing on Friday to determine if he is competent to be judged.
The authorities have not publicly identified a possible reason, although they have said that the victims do not seem to have been predetermined.
Gille’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comments. His brother told a local NBC affiliate who has long suffered mental health problems that have not been addressed, although his family has sought help.
“28 years have passed trying to deal with this and it is as if we knew this would come, but not in this way,” Brother WPBN told WPBN of Traverse City.
Another victim told Detroit NBC WDIV affiliate who believes the attack illustrates the failure of the mental health system.
“I felt nothing but pity for this boy, because she has never had a chance,” said the woman, who was stabbed at the top of the back and right lung.
Boudot, who works for a mortgage company, said his family had gone to the Walmart to obtain the chalk of the sidewalk, he and his wife have four children, when an employee of the store said there was a fight. Seconds later, Boudot, who was in the product area, remembered to see a man with the hat that got under seemed to try to touch his wife’s neck.
He said he “brushed” the man, blocking what he initially believed he was a man who tried to touch his wife.
“That was the only one I blocked,” he recalled. “All the rest reached its goal.”
Boudot said a total of five times was stabbed.
Despite the butcher shop, Boudot said that his general lack of faith in humanity was renewed by the actions that followed those around him: a stranger “wrapped his four children of my children because my wife is in a state of shock” and an older man applied the tourniquet.
That technique of salvation of life gave him the opportunity to get to the hospital, he said.
“And that gave me a chance with a vascular surgeon,” Boudot recalled. “So it’s incredible.”
