Victim of shooting in Virginia Beach was spared three times during the massacre

An employee of the City of Virginia Beach was confronted with the attacker DeWayne Craddock three times – during the workplace killings – but was spared each time.

Ned Carlstrom stated that he assumed that it was an active fire drill when he found himself face to face with his colleague carrying a "pistol." looks unpleasant "during his massacre of 12 people Friday.

"He had the gun at his side. He was so close to me, he swung his arm, he almost hit me with the rifle. That's how close we are, "said Carlstrom on Sunday when they first met in a stairwell.

"But he never raised the weapon on me. He looked up at me briefly.

Carlstrom, who works in the billing section of the city's water department, still assumed that Craddock, a civil engineer, was acting as an exercise for the municipal building.

"By the way, he passed me, he barely glanced at me and never broke his pace," he said. "I've thought that he was playing the role of the villain, that of someone who is pursuing a villain."

Five minutes after the start of the massacre, the murderer entered a room that Carlstrom had spared him – along with his colleague, Terry Inman, who had shouted, "DeWayne, stop!

"He went back and looked me straight in the eye, but he did not see me," recalls Inman, a 61-year-old bookkeeper. "He looked me right in the eye and he did not see me standing because he did not lift the revolver.

"For me, it was the Holy Spirit who inflicted something on this man to the point where he did not see Terry Inman standing there."

Carlstrom, of Chesapeake, avoided death a third time when Craddock approached the window of an office that he was hiding a little later.

"We had the door locked, but he could have pierced it or gone through it," insisted Carlstrom.

Carlstrom never saw Craddock shoot his gun – but many shots were fired, including one that he alleged killed his friend, Ryan Keith Cox, who he said was trying to put his colleagues safe when he was killed.

He did not realize the full extent of carnage until he was finally brought to safety.

"It was when I had to step over the body of one of my colleagues in the stairwell," he said. "I do not think it's okay (sink) until we get back to work and we do not have those people anymore."

Police Chief Jim Cervera insisted that Mr. Craddock – who had quit his job a few hours before mass shooting – was not known to have "targeted anyone in particular" .

Carlstrom also does not understand why he was repeatedly spared by the man whom he only knew by talking lightly about the parking lot.

"I guess it's a feeling of luck," Carlstrom said of his emotions.

His colleague Inman was also surprised that Craddock is carrying out such carnage.

"It's such a cliché of cotton picking that you almost hate to say it, but he has always been a very strong and positive man. He always had a smile on his face, "said Inman.

"Nothing in his character would make you think:" This guy will come in and kill 11 of my colleagues … 12 people working in the same building. "

With post son