What to Know
- A gunman walked into the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs and shot and killed 26 and injured 20 others on Nov. 5, 2017.
- The gunman was shot by a civilian as he exited the church. He fled and later crashed his SUV. He was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds.
- The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in Texas, it was the deadliest in an American place of worship
It's been one year since the deadly church shooting in Sutherland Springs, but the wounds are still fresh for survivors like David Colbath.
"I was scared, " Colbath recalled. "A grown man who was absolutely as scared as I possibly could be. I can't explain how frightening being shot at and getting shot is."
Colbath was sitting in a back pew when the shots rang out.
"I screamed at everybody to get on the floor, get on the floor. you could hear the bullets flying over you," he said. Colbath was shot 8 times.
"When he came down my isle, there was a bunch of people laying behind me and on me that were already passed," Colbath said. "The man next to me, he shot one time in the face and killed him. He came to me and my face was turned toward the wall and he put one in the middle of my back."
That final shot, David says, should have killed him. "I do believe I was saved," he said.
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He was in and out of consciousness. And as the shooting continued, he thought about his family.
"My life is flashing in front of me and the only thing I could think of was three words. I said 'I love you Jesus. I love you Olivia, I love you Morgan,'" he recalled. "I said it so many times as I crawled on my elbows."
Colbath spent three and a half months in the hospital. His rehab took months.
"I was learning how to do everything. I couldn't walk, my hands didn't work," he added.
But now a year later, he finds purpose in his pain.
"You know there's a saying in Christ-like circles that 'God will find a way to make something right out of all those wrongs.' I can help people out. I can tell them my story and help them understand God's grace," he said.
