'I was just three seats from Donald Trump when he was shot — it was traumatizing'

A rally attendee who was just three seats to the left of former President Donald Trump when the businessman was shot described the terror he experienced — both from being in the line of fire to then having to wait around an hour and a half to leave the parking lot afterward.

Trump's campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania , on Saturday, July 13, was "normal" by all appearances as attendees lined up, eagerly waiting to get into the event in the late afternoon, 21-year-old Zach Scherer said, adding that he's been to over 20 rallies and that "everything seemed normal" with this one.

"We got inside, and we were VIP guests, so we were three seats from the president's left shoulder," the Butler local told TheMirror.com. "He was late, of course, coming on already. Finally, they welcomed him. From when I took the first picture to when they got him on the ground, it was six or seven minutes. It was just unbelievable."

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Scherer said he heard a "popping noise" that he said sounded like a firecracker. "I was like, 'Who in the hell would bring a firecracker here?'" he said. "And then I watched [Trump] go for his right ear, and then he just dropped."

The next few seconds were utter chaos, he said, describing the "scary" experience. He said it took him a beat to realize what was happening, that he had heard gunfire and not a firecracker or other celebratory explosive.

“I think it was either the first or second shot — I mean, I have trouble recalling — but I watched [Trump] grab his ear, and he hit the ground, and everybody swarmed the stage," Scherer said. "I don’t think it was until like the second or third round that I watched people just drop."

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"I dropped," he continued. "I'm yelling at my dad, you know, 'Dad you gotta get down!' He's just standing there. I said — I swore at him. I grabbed him. I yanked him right to the floor."

He and his dad had no idea where the shots were coming from, either, he said, which was terrifying. "They just kept shooting," he said. "I was like, 'Oh my god, we're going to get shot.' And it was just crazy."

The former Pennsylvania state constable and active Republican said he and his father didn't get up until Secret Service agents shouted that everyone needed to get out of the venue, which was located at the Butler Farm Show, a small fairground just east of the city itself, which is 35 miles north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

That's when he said he saw one of the men who was critically injured just behind where he and his father had been sitting. "Nobody realized he was shot until Trump was in the motorcade and gone and we heard the screaming, and I’m like, ‘What is going on back there?’ They were dragging him down the bleachers," Scherer detailed.

"It was so surreal. From where we were at and the angle and from where we watched that gentleman get shot, it went right over our heads," he continued. "We would have been in between the shooter and the gentleman that was shot behind us."

At that point, Scherer said the chaos from the shooting itself had somewhat subsided, calling the vibe at that point "a little different," but still scary. "You knew that it was somewhat safe because people were running around and Trump was out of there. We had a feeling they got him, the shooter."

But then came another fear, he said — was there another shooter? And how were they going to get out of the venue safely?

"People just started running," Scherer recalled. "[The] Secret Service said, ‘You guys need to go, go go! Evacuate!’ And then people around me were getting trampled. Everybody was so scared, they didn’t know what to do."

He said he witnessed climbing over what he called "bike-rack fencing" and that he and his father quickly did the same since they "didn't know what was going to happen next."

"It was very scary because my first thought was, ‘Was there more than one shooter? Or was there other people involved that were outside the gates or in the parking lot?'" he said.

Once he and his father finally made it to the parking lot and got in their vehicle, he said it took them around an hour and a half to finally get out of the fairground. The entire time, he said they lived in fear that another shooter would target them in the lot, where they and thousands of other rally attendees had been corralled by the authorities as they ushered everyone out.

He said they were "gridlocked," adding, "It was just pretty much equally as scary as the shots being fired because anybody could think, you know, if you're doing an assassination attempt, I mean, you would think there's more than one individual, and that's what we were scared of was being pinned in that parking lot and something else would happen." Scherer became a bit flustered as he recalled the ordeal, and his words began spilling out in quick succession.

Finally, after an hour and a half stuck in the parking lot, he and his father made their way to Butler, where he said they stopped to eat. "We still kind of felt scared that something else in the general vicinity was gonna happen," he said. "I'm still scared today."

Scherer said he fears that other such events will happen at other rallies. But that's not going to stop him from supporting the former president.

"There’s shootings that happen everywhere, though. There’s stabbings. If you go to a restaurant, you might — you know," he said. "You just can’t live in fear every day. That’s like saying you’re not going to go see your favorite singer at a concert." He added, "It isn’t going to stop me. You can’t live in fear."

Eventually, however, he said the fear was accompanied by anger — anger that something like what's been called an assassination attempt and an act of domestic terrorism by the FBI could happen in his town.

"We feel very safe here," Scherer said. "I think the people here are more in disbelief that this happened in our town. We lost a local community member, and the shooter was from Bethel Park — that’s just 45 minutes down the road. It’s just surreal. I mean, I don’t think we can wrap our heads around it."

Now, the community wants answers, he said. "We need to get to the bottom of what happened here, first of all. I haven’t heard a motive — I don’t think they’ve released it yet. They claim the guy was acting alone — was he? Who knows?" he said. "I think everybody just wants answers at this point to feel some sort of relief."

It's also a time to come together, he said, to support the families of those who were injured and the 50-year-old firefighter, Corey Comperatore, who was killed in the harrowing incident. He said the community could do a lot to help his family heal from their pain — and heal itself in the process.