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Published April 6, 2019
Updated April 20, 2019, 11:30 a.m. ET
The teen who bravely jumped from a window to escape the Columbine High School shooting is speaking out 20 years after he got shot and his classmates were slaughtered in the massacre.
“It was the shortest way out,” said Patrick Ireland, the so-called “boy on the window,” who got stuck halfway out as he tried to reach SWAT members while millions watched on TV.
“My whole right side was paralyzed,” he told the Daily Mirror. “I felt confident that there’d be someone there to catch me.”
Bleeding from three gunshot wounds, Ireland spent three hours dragging himself 50 feet across the library floor — and past dead students — to the window’s ledge.
The 17-year-old landed in the arms of SWAT officers Donn Kraemer and John Ramoniec. His ordeal played out live on national television.
Thirteen victims were killed that day after heavily armed students Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris, 18, attacked the Colorado school on April 20, 1999.
“We were all shot fairly early on in the library,” said Ireland, now 37. “We heard their shots and the throwing of pipe bombs as they got closer. It was harrowing.”
Ireland hid under a table when the shooters stormed the library and was hit by Klebold, who was wielding a sawed-off shotgun, when Ireland darted out to help his friend, Makai Hall.
“After I was shot, I blacked out and was unconscious through most of the mayhem. It was a blessing in disguise. It saved me from a lot of traumatic memories,” he said.
A shot to the left side of Ireland’s brain paralyzed him. He also suffered a second head wound and a fractured right foot, according to the Mirror.
Ireland, who now walks with a limp and has permanent injuries to his right hand, spent seven months in therapy and had to relearn how to walk, talk and read, the paper reported.
“It was like elementary school again,” he said.
Ireland returned to Columbine for his senior year and went on to study business finance at Colorado State University, where he met his wife on his first day on campus, according to the Mirror.
They now have three children together.
“I was so determined not to let my shooters win,” he told the paper.
“I believe the world is still good at heart. People need to hold on to that. Evil will not win. There are too many good people in the world.”
