Downtown Seattle shooting survivor describes ordeal

SEATTLE — The man who survived the downtown Seattle shooting says he doesn’t believe having police officers on every street corner is the proper response to violence. But he says he will “trust” public officials to find a solution that will appease anyone wants police on every street corner.

Randall Sullivan was one of seven people shot last month. One woman died. He says strangers came to save him.

“So I just took off in the direction I was facing,” said Sullivan. "Like, across the Macy’s. And that’s when I could feel, like, the pain, like, right here in my leg.”

He calmly recalled a January night like no other. He and five innocent people were struck by gunfire in the heart of downtown Seattle, one fatally.

He ran a few steps, then dropped.

“Yeah, the pain,” Sullivan said. “And I think the shock of everything just happening. I sort of lost balance or the concentration. I just fell to the ground.”

Once there, "I kind of called out and said, like, ‘I’m shot, like, I’m shot.’ "

A security guard and an off-duty nurse raced over to help.

“And I remember asking, like: ‘Am I going to die? Like, am I going to lose my leg? Like, how much am I bleeding?’”

Incredibly, doctors discovered the bullet penetrated his left thigh and broke into fragments but broke no bones.

“They just kind of cleaned it up,” he said. “No stitches. And they released me. No painkillers, just ibuprofen.”

He said, laughing: “It was a lot of ibuprofen. But otherwise no narcotics. No anything.”

He feels lucky.

“I’m extremely lucky,” he said.

Sullivan said he has walked by the spot at 3rd and Pine since he was shot, past a memorial to the woman who died. It is a sobering reminder of the tragedy that happened in downtown.

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