RELIVING THE HORROR

Atlanta Spa Survivor Says He Begged ‘Don’t Shoot Me’

But the gunman fired a bullet that went in right between his eyes.

The survivor of the Atlanta area spa massacres says he came face-to-face with the gunman, begged to be spared, and was shot anyway. In a recorded interview provided by his attorney to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz recounted the terrifying events of March 16 at Young’s Asian Massage. He said he was in a massage room when he heard shots and opened the door to find the suspect, Robert Aaron Long, standing there. “Don’t shoot me,” Hernandez-Ortiz said he pleaded. “As I looked at him, the attacker, in the eyes I told him not to shoot, but he still did.”

The bullet entered between Hernandez-Ortiz’s eyes and traveled down, damaging his esophagus and lodging in his abdomen, the Journal-Constitution reports. He is now using a tracheostomy tube to breathe and is saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. But, he said in the recording, he is grateful to have survived the shootings that left eight others dead. “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.”