A survivor of the mass shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets Mall is speaking out about his experiences. 46-year old Irvin Walker was shot and injured during the attack by Mauricio Garcia that killed 8 people. He is currently being treated at Medical City McKinney.
"Enormous thanks and praise to the most high God that protected me through this process," Walker said during a news conference at the hospital on Tuesday. "As soon as I entered this hospital, medical professionals expressed the highest level of love for me."
Walker was at the mall on the afternoon of May 6th to do some shopping ahead of Mother's Day. He had just dropped his girlfriend off in front of one of the stores and was searching for a parking spot when Mauricio Garcia opened fire.
"That's where tragedy started," Walker said. As he tried to get to safety, he got help from security guard Christian LaCour.
"After I had already been impacted by the shooter and had exited my vehicle and was running for help...I saw what looked like a security officer. I ran towards that way. That was our initial meeting. He proceeded to tell me to have a seat because I was running...because I knew the urgency of my matter. He was behind me," Walker said. "I don't have much to say after that. A tragedy occurred."
LaCour is one of the eight people who were shot and killed by Garcia.
Walker is grateful for the medical care he has received since the shooting and said his religious faith is helping in his recovery.
"I think this event was just evidence of evil not winning," Walker said. "The power of God just showed brightly and gave me an opportunity to fight through this process, and evil is not going to win."
During that same news conference, staffers at Medical City offered some details about their response during the event. Chief Nursing Officer Cassidi Summers had been at the mall just before the shooting.
"My family and I had just gotten home from the Allen mall when I received the notification that there was a shooting there. After the fact, I learned that we had walked the exact same path that the shooter had gone less than an hour before," Summers said. "I came directly to Medical City McKinney where we immediately stood up the command center. This allowed us to coordinate staffing, decompress the emergency department, manage family and visitors, deploy appropriate supplies and resources so that our staff could focus on the high quality of care that our patients needed at the time."
She's proud of the response that the staff provided during the difficult situation.
"In addition to our caregivers on duty that day, we had over a hundred nurses, surgeons, physicians, leaders and support staff from Medical City McKinney and across Medical City Healthcare who stopped what they were doing within a matter of minutes and responded to this crisis," she said. "Every person responded with speed, skill and a tremendous amount of compassion for the patients, their families and for one another."
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