In the aftermath of a deadly shooting at the Seattle Center, witnesses describe strangers stepping up to help others.
Brad Rasmussen and his mother had driven from Cle Elum to attend the Bite of Seattle festival. They were taking a picture the moment that gunshots rang out.
Rasmussen dropped his food, grabbed his mother’s hand, and started running. His immediate instinct was to crouch low to the ground while running.
At one point, he lost his footing, tripped and scraped his knee. He believes he may have broken a toe.
“There was luckily a man who had came and helped me to get up and continue running,” Rasmussen said. “He assured me. He said, ‘You’re going to be okay. Just keep moving, keep moving,’ and he got me.”
Rasmussen said his mother was panicking, and he slowed down to stay with her.
“I was just waiting for a bullet to hit me, or my mom, or someone around us,” he said. “I was just waiting, and I just knew that we had to move and get out of there.”
Once they reached a location they felt was safe, Rasmussen said they encountered a young girl, about four or five years old, who had been separated from her father. She was traumatized, Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen said several young women huddled around her and consoled her. The girl had her father’s number memorized, and the two were reunited later that night.
He wasn’t the only one who stepped up to help others, nor was he the only person to receive help from a stranger.
Dominique Campbell, who was working the event as a vendor, saw that a woman at a booth near his had been shot.
Campbell, who has a clothing business, knew he had supplies that could help.
“We went over there, grabbed some T-shirts, and then started wrapping her leg up,” Campbell said.
Campbell said she wasn’t scared, but confused.
“She’s like, ‘Did I get shot?’ I didn’t want to scare her, but I was like, ‘Yeah, you got shot in your leg. That’s why you’re bleeding so much,’” Campbell said.
Images from the aftermath show the urgency of the crowd, with abandoned plates of food and a child’s shoe left behind in the rush.
Despite the chaos, Rasmussen highlighted the collective effort to help others.
“Everybody seemed to be just trying to help each other, and that was very touching,” he said.