
 
 Vicki Gardner, right, who survived an on-air shooting that killed two TV journalists in Virginia last month, with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. (Fox News/On The Record via AP) 
 
 On Aug. 26, Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce, was preparing to be interviewed on live television in Southwest Virginia. She and the reporter about to interview her discussed where they would stand and what they would talk about — “our usual fun conversation,” Gardner said. A cameraman set up nearby. 
 
 Then: action. The interview began. 
 
 “We saw a motion that seemed a little unusual,” Gardner said. A man was lingering out of the frame. It was a distraction. Was he looking for something? Was he going to ask Gardner a question — live, on-the-air? 
 
 Then: “Gunfire,” Gardner said. “Lots and lots of gunfire.” 
 
 The shots reportedly came from the weapon of Vester L. Flanagan III. Flanagan, a disgruntled former co-worker of Alison Parker of WDBJ (Channel 7) in Roanoke, killed her and cameraman Adam Ward during a live broadcast before taking his own life. 
 
 Now, in a lengthy interview aired Tuesday night with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, Gardner — still looking shocked weeks after the attack and tearing up at times — has offered details about how she survived a senseless rampage that claimed two lives. 
 
 Gardner, 61, was shot while being interviewed about the coming 50th anniversary of the reservoir and recreational area about an hour’s drive southeast of Roanoke. In the CBS station’s video of the interview, which captured the shooting, Gardner praised the “moderate climate” and “excellent conditions” of the lake community, as The Washington Post’s Antonio Olivo reported. 
 
 “This is our community,” Gardner said in the video. “We want to come together. We want to share information that can help us grow and develop, to provide a better experience.” 
 
 Then came the attack. Realizing that Ward was down and Parker was “not to the side of me any longer,” Gardner followed her instincts. 
 
 “The only thing I could think of was play dead,” she said. The attacker, she reasoned, didn’t know whether he had hit her or not. So she hit the floor — “as though I had been hit,” she said — and rolled up in a fetal position. 
 
 “I felt as though he was going to shoot me in the head,” Gardner said. 
 
 Indeed, the shooter returned and shot her in the back. Gardner thought the bullet went through her spine, and that she would be paralyzed. 
 
 “I have so many angels around me or something, it didn’t happen that way,” she said. “… I don’t know whether he tried to fire off a couple more rounds. I was just concentrating on being so still that he wouldn’t shoot me again.” 
 
 When emergency responders arrived, Gardner was taken to a hospital. Doctors removed part of one of Gardner’s kidneys and part of her colon, as the Associated Press reported. 
 
 “The surgeon told me that a couple of centimeters and she wouldn’t be walking, and a couple of centimeters more and she wouldn’t be alive,” Tim Gardner, her husband, said last month. 
 
 Gardner told Van Susteren the killer said nothing as the bullets flew. 
 
 “My heart just goes out to Adam and Alison,” she said. “They’re so young. … Why take me and save me and take them?” 
 
 Van Susteren: “Is it a good thing he killed himself?” 
 
 “I don’t know,” Gardner said. “He did what he did. It certainly does take a lot of the drama out of it, doesn’t it? It’s over.” 
 
 The survivor said she would not waste her good fortune. 
 
 “Obviously there is a purpose, and by golly, I will fulfill it,” she said. 
 
 Correction: Adam Ward’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this post. ||||| WDBJ7 shooting survivor Vicki Gardner spoke to Greta Van Susteren tonight in an "On The Record" exclusive interview. 
 
 Gardner was being interviewed by WDBJ7 reporter Alison Parker when a gunman opened fire, killing Parker and photographer Adam Ward. Gardner was shot in the back during the attack. 
 
 Gardner told Greta that while she was being interviewed, she saw movement with her peripheral vision. 
 
 "Then it was just very, very fast. And I saw movement. And then gunfire. Lots and lots of gunfire," Gardner said. "From that point, it was very chaotic." 
 
 She said the only thing she could think of was to play dead. 
 
 "I just fell to the ground as though I had been hit and went into fetal position," Gardner said. "He did come back up and shot me in the back." 
 
 Gardner said she was sure that she was going to be shot in the head, so she just concentrated on remaining still and made her peace. 
 
 Luckily, the gunman didn't fire any more shots and fled. Police and emergency personnel were on the scene several minutes later. 
 
 "My heart just goes out to Alison and Adam," Gardner said. "Why save me and take them? But obviously, there's a purpose. And by golly, I will fulfill it." 
 
 Gardner's husband, Tim, told Greta that he watched the horrifying shooting unfold on live TV. 
 
 "I knew exactly what had happened. I heard the gunshots and saw the expression on her face," he said. "And then the next 15 minutes was a really tough 15 minutes." 
 
 He said that Vicki called him while she was in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. 
 
 "I have to tell you, those are some of the best words I've ever heard," he said. "She said that she was alive, she didn't know why, and that she loved me." 
 
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– Vicki Gardner, the sole survivor of the WDBJ7 on-air shootings last month, gave her first interview to Greta Van Susteren on Fox News last night. "It was just very, very fast. And I saw movement. And then gunfire. Lots and lots of gunfire. From that point, it was very chaotic," said Gardner, the executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce. "The only thing I could think of was play dead," she added, per the Washington Post. "I just fell to the ground as though I had been hit and went into fetal position," she said, but the gunman "did come back up and shot me in the back." As she lay there assuming the bullet had gone through her spine and would paralyze her, "I was just concentrating on being so still that he wouldn’t shoot me again," she said. Horrifyingly, Gardner's husband Tim saw the whole thing unfold on live TV, he told Van Susteren. "I knew exactly what had happened. I heard the gunshots and saw the expression on her face," he said. "And then the next 15 minutes was a really tough 15 minutes," until his wife called him from the ambulance. "I have to tell you, those are some of the best words I've ever heard," he says (he'd earlier described his wife's account of the shooting.) Gardner, 61, said she feels awful for the families of reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Wade, who were killed. "Why save me and take them?" she asks. "But obviously, there's a purpose. And by golly, I will fulfill it."