Damn.
Christian author Frank Turek, who was with Charlie Kirk when he was assassinated, shared a heartbreaking testimony of what happened in those final moments:
"Now, here's what Erika wants me to relate on Sunday. This is going to be the hard part, but maybe also the comforting part. Charlie Kirk was literally like a son to me. I have three sons. He was like my fourth son. My three sons are a little bit older than Charlie; he was like my fourth son. So when he was hit⦠if your son got hit, what would you do? What would you do? I got in the car⦠because if there was any way I could save him, I had to do something. I couldnāt just⦠āOkay, just take him, you guys got it.ā
So, they got him into the side of the car. It was an SUV. It was an SUV we took over, and Iām on one sideāand thereās actually video of this, somebody was taking video of thisāIām on one side of the car, the right side, and theyāre getting Charlie in. So, I run over to the other side, but the guy who was dragging him in is now blocking that entrance. So at that point, I run around to the back. I pop the topāthe back gate openāand I jump in the back. The car lurches forward. Apparently, somebody jumped in the car, so the car lurches forward. So I almost fall out of the car or the SUV. Then I grab the thing and close it. And thereās five of us in the car now. Justin is driving, Dan is up front with the GPS, Rick has got him⦠Rick is on my left and Brian is there, and Iām coming over the back seat. And Charlieās laid out in front⦠just right in front of me. And Charlie is so tall we canāt⦠we canāt close the door.
We drove four miles⦠I donāt know, four-something miles⦠all the way to the hospital with the door open. To this day, I donāt know how Brian stayed in the car. Because weāre just⦠āGo, go, go, go, go!ā Weāre⦠you know, weāre trying to stop the bleeding. You saw it. And Iām yelling, āCome on, Charlie, come on, come on!ā Meanwhile, my phone is still on. My son and daughter-in-law are hearing this whole thing. And his security team, again: Justin, Dan, Brian, and Rick. They loved Charlie. But they were much cooler than Iā I mean, theyāre just carrying outātheyāre calmly, but theyāre swiftly doing exactly what they were trained to do. Rick starts praying out loud. Iām praying out loud. Weāre yelling, āCome on! Letās go, letās go, letās go!ā My sonās hearing all this. And weāre doing the best we can to navigate traffic. This is not a highwayāweāre on surface streets.
And suddenly, thereās an ambulance coming toward us. And there was a conversation in the carāshould we stop? Weāre like, āNo, no, just keep going, just keep going.ā The doctor later said that was the right thing to do. Ambulance goes by us. Weāre still heading to the hospital, trying to get there. At one point, somebody says, āLetās get there in one piece!ā because weāre justāweāre cutting through intersections, you know, weāre just beeping the horn. This is not an emergency vehicle. Thereās no⦠thereās no lights, thereās none of this. And I go, āWeāve got to start CPR.ā So I try and start that.
Now⦠Charlie wasnāt there. His eyes were fixed. He wasnāt looking at me. He was looking past me, right into eternity. He was with Jesus already. He was killed instantly and felt absolutely no paināthatās what I was told later. But of course, we had to try. And by the way, there was just nothing⦠nothing any of us could do about it. We were giving him CPR, but nothing was happening. It wasnāt like if we had better first aid or we had better medical facilities or we were faster to the hospital, we could have saved him. We couldnāt. So if thatās any comfort at all, Charlie didnāt suffer. He was gone. He was with Jesus. āAbsent from the body, present with the Lord.ā Thatās where he was.
Now it is true, when we got to the hospital, and they started working on him right away, they did get a pulse back. And so, Rick and I were justāeveryoneās prayingāweāre just praying for a miracle. We had a small sliver of hope. And the doctor later said that we got a pulse because Charlie was a very healthy man. But the shot was catastrophic. So 20 or 30 minutes later, the surgeon came out and said he was dead."