CHESAPEAKE, Va. — A Walmart worker shot twice at the Chesapeake, Virginia, store said her son told her "he thought he was going to die” when his manager opened fire in the break room.
Kimberly Shupe said that her son Jalon Jones told her that “it was a normal day at work” when he and other associates were having their daily meeting in the break room when "his manager was looking kind of different."
"He just didn't understand what was going on. Everybody thought [the manager] was in a mood or something," Shupe said. "Suddenly it changed. It transitioned from the look to actually seeing a gun."
Shupe said that when her son's ear was grazed by a bullet, the 24-year-old realized "he was being shot" and ran to escape.
“He saw people on the ground,” she said. “He actually had to... kind of jump over them just to save his self.”
When Jones made it to the front, his mother said he told her that he was “shot again by the same person.”
“His exact words were, ‘I got shot.... I actually got shot.’ And then when he made it to the front, his exact words was, ‘I just got shot again,’” his mother said. “So you know, you got shot in the beginning. And now as you're trying to go get help, just shot again."
Shupe said a coworker helped her son and took him outside to her car until medics arrived.
The violence, which killed six people and left at least six people, including one critically, injured, is the nation’s second high-profile mass shooting in four days.
Jones, who was shot in his back and sternum, told his mother he thought he was going to die.
"It was a moment where he just had... blackouts and you feel like you're just leaving, but he just kept going,” she said.
Shupe called her son a fighter and said that he is now stable after being on a ventilator after he arrived at the hospital.
“I'm grateful to hear him say that he was fighting, and that he actually felt he was leaving, but he just kept coming back,” she said. “That’s the will, so I'm very enthused that he actually pushed through... and he found that place to come back.”
Shupe said her son is struggling to process what he witnessed.
“People you see every day that you possibly won't see again, if they were affected by this,” Shupe said. “There's trauma. He's really dealing with that more, I guess you could say almost as much as the injuries: the trauma of people being injured and hurt that he might not ever see again.”
Shupe said she was thankful that she often told her son she loved him.
"He would just want you to know, and this is what I actually told him just few minutes ago, that the people you love in your life, just make sure you always let them know you love them," Shupe said. "Because you just never know when they walk out the door if you're ever going to see him again. That's something he and I have prided ourselves on lately more and more. And I'm just grateful that I did that."
That is something Shupe said she is hoping for the victims who did not survive.
"And that we had those discussions prior to this happening because that's what was running through my mind when I heard about the injuries that was the same. And the people that were hurt, all I was thinking was, 'Did they even get a chance to say, I love you, or I care about you and that I hope everything goes well for you at work?'" she said. "You just never know when you're going to have that last moment."
Shupe said her son is grateful to have survived.
“He absolutely wanted people to know,” she said. “And he is just glad to be alive. He really is. He's glad to be alive.”
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