Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz, the lone survivor of the Atlanta area spa shootings last month said he came face-to-face with the alleged gunman Robert Aaron Long and begged for mercy, but was shot anyway.
Hernandez-Ortiz said in an audio interview with Atlanta Journal-Constitution, that he was in a massage room when he heard gunshots. He opened the door and stood face-to-face with Long. He dropped to the ground and begged Long to spare him, but he was shot anyway.
“I did not see how many or know how many people there were, but as I looked at him, the attacker, in the eyes I told him not to shoot, but he still did,” Hernandez-Ortiz said. “He shot me. Face to face I asked him not to do so, but even so he did.”
The bullet entered between Hernandez-Ortiz’s eyes and traveled down, damaging his esophagus and lodging in his abdomen, the Journal-Constitution reports.
After he was shot he managed to make his way outside Young’s Asian Massage and called his wife and nephew. It was then that he noticed that he was losing his voice.
He is now using a tracheotomy tube to breathe, but is grateful to be alive, and hope to one day be able to return to work at his Acworth auto repair shop.
“God brought me back here to share my life with my family and the people who listen to part of my story,” he said. “I’m here, thanks to God and my family and the people who have and will support me.”
A GoFundMe was set up to help him cover medical bills.
Last month, Long, 21, killed eight people in three separate spa shootings in the Atlanta area. Hernandez-Ortiz did not know any of the victims.
Six of the eight victims killed were Asian women, prompting some to believe that the crime was racially motivated.
Long told investigators he was overwhelmed by sexual addiction at odds with his religious beliefs, authorities said. He faces murder and aggravated assault charges and is held without bail in Cherokee County, according to the Journal-Constitution.
