Well-wishers donate $850k to Oregon shooting hero

A GOFUNDME page for the army veteran who was shot seven times while trying to protect fellow students during Thursday’s shooting in Oregon has raised more than $850,000.

Chris Mintz Oregon Shooting victim. Picture: ABC7

THE heroic community college student who was shot seven times as he tried to protect classmates during Thursday’s shooting in Oregon has received more than US$600,000 ($853,000) in donations from wellwishers.

Army veteran Chris Mintz, 30, warned others to escape before trying to stop the gunman, who killed nine and wounded another nine, from entering a classroom.

Fellow student Hannah Miles told ABC News: “He ran to the library and pulled all the alarms and he was telling people to run, grabbing people and telling them ‘You have to go’, and he actually ran back towards the building where the shooting was.”

Lucky to be alive ... Chris Mintz and his son, who turned six on the same day as the shooting. Picture: GoFundMe

Family member Derek Bourgeois says Mr Mintz then tried to block the doorway. “He was trying to hold the door and block the gunman,” Mr Bourgeois told the New York Times.

As the gunman, Chris Harper-Mercer, shot at Mr Mintz during his rampage at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, the young father tried to convince him to stop shooting by telling him that he didn’t want to die on his son’s birthday, reports People. Despite his pleas, Harper-Mercer shot Mr Mintz two more times, according to ABC7.

Mr Mintz’s son, who has non-verbal autism, was celebrating his sixth birthday that day.

Fortunately, despite being shot numerous times, no vital organs were hit. He was taken to hospital and underwent multiple surgeries on Thursday. He is expected to recover.

Smiling already ... Chris Mintz grins from his hospital bed, despite having been shot seven times. Picture: ABC7

A GoFundMe page was set up to help him pay his medical bills, and it has already raised well beyond the original target of US$10,000 ($14,200). So far more than 19,000 people have donated US$638,161 ($907,239).

Mr Mintz had completed 10 years in the army and had only recently started his studies, his aunt said.

“We’re just so thankful he’s alive,” his aunt Wanda Kay Mintz told People. “None of the bullets hit any major organs,” she said. “Both his legs were hit and broken. He was shot in the stomach, the back and his hand. One bullet travelled down his spine, and became lodged in his hip. The doctors are just going to leave it there.”

Father and son ... Mr Mintz pleaded with the gunman to stop shooting because he didn’t want to die on his little boy’s birthday. Picture: Facebook

He will have to learn to walk again, but he and his family are counting their blessings.

“...He walked away with his life and that’s more than so many other people did,” cousin Ariana Earnhardt told ABC7.

Even from his hospital bed, Mr Mintz continued to think about how others were faring, posting: “Hope the others injured and their families are doing well, goodnight for me.”