Chris Mintz is the 30 year-old Army veteran who made headlines by physically confronting an armed attacker bent on shooting his classmates at Umpqua Community College. Though the altercation left him wounded and confined to a hospital bed, an outpouring of support from the military community has helped boost Mintz’ spirits and fundraise for his medical bills.

Now several weeks have gone by since the shooting, and Mintz is finally speaking out about what exactly happened. In a lengthy Facebook post, Mintz describes how the day started as any other. He got coffee before class with a friend and joked about skipping the very class Chris Harper Mercer would assault several hours later.

As fate would have it, Mintz showed up to class on time and witnessed the ensuing chaos firsthand.

We were sitting in class, and there was a bunch of yelling that started in the other room, my teacher walked up to the door that connected our classroom and asked if everyone was ok, no one could tell what the yelling was. The teacher knocked on the door and there were gunshots that sounded like firecrackers going off. I sat in the front middle of the class, so we all got up and took off out of the classroom and I stopped and held the door open and waited or everyone to leave safely.

Mintz calmly evacuated his classroom even though it meant risking his own safety. He moved to the library and told the students in there to evacuate as well. Inevitably, Mintz’ effort to get everyone out of the building brought him face-to-face with the shooter himself.

In the most disturbing part of Mintz’ account, Mercer was entirely nonchalant during the entire shooting, “like he was playing a video game and showed no emotion.”

The shots knocked me to the ground and felt like a truck hit me. He shot me again while I was on the ground and hit my finger, and said “that’s what you get for calling the cops” and I laid there, in a fetal position unable to move and responded “I didn’t call the cops man, they were already on the way.” He leaned further out of the classroom and tried to shoot my phone, I yelled “its my kids birthday man” he pointed the gun right at my face and then he retreated back into the class. I’m still confused at why he didn’t shoot me again.

Mintz was shot five times, once in each leg, once in the abdomen, once in his left hand and once in the shoulder blade. Mercer killed nine people before turning his gun on himself.

Mintz concluded his Facebook post by thanking the first responders and paramedics who rushed to the scene. “THEY are the real heroes. They saved us.”