An Ohio native injured in the Tucson shooting rampage has witnessed tragedy before.
Randy Gardner, 60, was a sophomore at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, when the Ohio National Guard opened fire at an anti-war rally, killing four.
"I wasn't far from where Jeff Miller got struck," Gardner recalled. Miller was one of the Kent State students killed that day. He also knew a woman in his English class, Allison Krause, who died.
Gardner told The New York Times he ran for his life that day, 75 yards, before diving to the ground.
Gardner is semiretired and lives in Tucson.
He was waiting in line Jan. 8 to see Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., at her "Congress on Your Corner" event when a gunman opened fire on the crowd, killing six and injuring 13, including Giffords.
"Here I am again," he thought, "dodging bullets," he told The Arizona Republic.
"I never saw the shooter or anything," he said. "I just kept hearing all these bullets going off and couldn't really determine where it was coming from. But it was pretty close, right in front of us and getting louder. And I just thought, well, I gotta walk out of here."
Gardner was shot in the foot. A woman he was talking with in line, Phyllis Schneck, 79, was killed.
But he's haunted by the events.
“When you’re six feet away from a 9-year-old girl and you live and they don’t, it's hard,” the former mental health counselor told the Times.
Gardner, who left Portland, Ore., for Tucson in 2005, escaped by running to the parking lot in a crouch, hiding behind cars and taking refuge in a Walgreen’s.
Gardner spent one night in the hospital, then returned to the quiet cul-de-sac in northwest Tucson where he lives with his partner of 25 years, Barbara Hanna. He wears a soft cast reaching almost to his knee.
"I don't understand it," he said of the two tragedies. "It's a coincidence. It's not a good one. That's for sure. But in between that, I've had a good life."
