#HolmesTrial: Jury hears from southern Colorado victim in day one of testimony

Survivors of the Aurora Theater shooting recounted for the jury the events of that night from the witness stand on day two of the James Holmes trial Tuesday.

The prosecution’s first witness was Katie Medley, the wife of a man from Florence who was shot in the head in the July 20, 2012 attack.

Caleb Medley was the last person wounded in the shooting to be released from the hospital. he went to a long-term care facility about two months after the attack.

Katie Medley was nine months pregnant at the time of the attack. She gave birth to their first child a few days after the shooting in the same hospital where Caleb was in critical condition in a medically induced coma.

She told the jury that she thought her husband was dead after he was shot in the head but then noticed he was breathing.

She said police opened the exit door and screamed for people to come outside.

Medley told her friend Ashley Kurz that she had to make a decision about whether to leave or stay with her husband, and she decided to leave to make sure their unborn baby – which could be the last piece of him – would survive. She said she took his hand and he squeezed it.

“I told him that I loved him and that I would take care of our baby if he didn’t make it,” she said.

As she and her friend left, she said she had to step over bodies on the floor and then slipped in a large amount of blood. A police officer caught her.

Three friends of Jesse Childress, who died in the attack, also took the stand Tuesday morning.

Childress worked in communications at Buckley Air Force Base. He was excited to see the “Batman” premiere and bought tickets for himself and some friends, including his boss, Derick Spruel, and Spruel’s wife, Chichi.

When the Spruels saw flashes and tear gas in the theater, they at first thought it was a prank and tried to keep watching the movie.

Soon, they were both on the floor praying.

In a 911 call played in court, Chichi Spruel pleads with a dispatcher to send help. She’s still on the phone when police arrive.

“Oh my God,” Chichi Spruel says. “There are people dead everywhere.”

District Attorney George Brauchler listened to the recording with his head bowed, partially covered by his hands.

Following a recess for lunch, Prodeo Et Patria, 17, took the stand.

Patria went to see the movie with his parents. He was shot in the back. His mother was shot in the arm and leg.

Prosecutors displayed a photograph of Patria’s injury, but the defense objected when the image lingered on the screen behind the witness stand.

Patria’s mother, Rita Paulina testified about her family’s attempt to escape the theater when the shooting started.

Speaking through an Indonesian interpreter, Paulina said the three were running when she saw a man “holding something long,” so they changed direction.

Then she noticed something was wrong with her.

Paulina told her husband, Anggiat Mora, that her arm felt strange, “like a zombie.” He told her to keep running.

But Paulina then fell, and she realized she had been shot in the foot as well as the arm.

She told her husband and then-14-year-old son to leave her behind. But Mora refused, saying they’d promised each other they would go back to Indonesia the following year.

He struggled but managed to carry her out on his back.

Testimony is expected to continue until about 5:30 p.m.

James Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the 2012 attack.