By MONA NAIR
6 News Reporter
KNOXVILLE (WATE) - Lucas Smith, one of the wounded in the Colorado theater shooting, recently moved from Knoxville to Colorado with his wife.
Lucas worked for a contracting company in Knoxville. His wife, Heather, was an arts teacher at South-Doyle High School. They moved for work.
Like a lot of Batman fans, Lucas and Heather were looking forward to seeing "The Dark Knight Rises" so they were at the midnight showing in Aurora.
"There was stadium seating in the theater. We were in the center about six rows up. The front right of the auditorium was the emergency exit," Lucas said. "About 25 minutes into the movie, he came through that door, walking swiftly."
He says the man dressed in black, later identified as James Holmes, a 24-year-old doctoral student in neuroscience at the University of Colorado-Denver, threw a canister of gas into the theater.
At first, Lucas says he thought it was a prank related to the movie. But then Holmes fired a shot into the air.
Lucas says the second round of shots was in his direction. "And then his second shot was at me. Well it was at the center of the stadium seating which is basically where I was. I was shot in my right thigh, my entire right side of my right thigh and my right hip."
"I just remember getting shot and then I ducked down behind the seat with my wife, and I was holding her head down," Lucas said. "The gunfire just continued for a solid 90 seconds, which felt like forever."
Finally, when there was a break in the gunfire, the couple ran out of the theater.
"We ran into the car," Lucas said. "We just drove over to the next hospital, which ended up not having emergency services. So we drove to the next closest hospital."
With eight small pieces of shells from the shotgun lodged in his leg, doctors won't do surgery so Lucas was discharged.
Despite everything that happened, he says he only feels gratitude that he and his wife made it out of that theater alive.
"We are rejoicing right now, and we are in high spirits. We're very, very, very grateful because the truth is, we probably should have died," Lucas said.
Family from both sides have traveled to Colorado to help them recover.
Heather and Lucas Smith (source: Facebook)
