House Majority Whip Steve Scalise has revealed his desperate prayer to see his daughter’s wedding in the seconds after he was shot during a Congressional GOP baseball practice.
The Republican from Louisiana spoke out in a candid interview with 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday night, reliving the horror of the June shooting on a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia.
Scalise said there was no warning before gunman James Hodgkinson, a left-wing activist who carried an apparent hit-list of conservative Republican Congressmen, opened fire on the early-morning baseball practice.
‘We’re just out there playin’ baseball – sittin’ ducks. And he started firing’ away,’ Scalise told the CBS News program with his wife Jennifer at his side.
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise spoke candidly about the horror shooting with Norah O’Donnell for the new episode of 60 Minutes, which aired on Sunday night
Scalise’s wife Jennifer joined him for the interview, in which he revealed his desperate prayers in the seconds after a gunman stormed the GOP Congressional baseball practice in June
Scalise, playing second base at the time, was hit in the hip and seriously wounded.
‘My first instinct was to try to get away from the gunfire. So I started crawling. And you know, that’s when my arms gave out,’ he recalled.
‘At that point I just went into prayer, and it gave me a calmness. It was a weird calmness while I’m hearing the gunfire. You know the first thing that came to mind. I prayed, “God, please don’t let my daughter have to walk up the aisle alone.” That was the first thing that came to mind,’ he said.
Scalise’s daughter Madison is 10. He and his wife also have an eight-year-old son, Harrison.
At the shooting, Scalise’s Capitol Police protection detail was present and returned fire in a furious shootout that lasted 10 minutes, with over 100 rounds exchanged.
Laying exposed on the infield as the rounds flew back and forth over his head, Scalise says he ‘prayed that I could see my family again’.
Congressman Mike Conway from Texas, who had been playing first base, took cover in the dugout and did his best to communicate with Scalise while the gun battle blazed.
Scalise and his wife have a 10-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son. The Congressman said his first thought after being shot was a prayer to survive for his daughter’s wedding
Scalise returned to his alma mater Louisiana State University on Saturday. He is seen holding his wife’s hand before a football game between LSU and Troy
‘I just kept remember him whispering, you know, “Stevie, don’t worry. We’re going to get ya– we’re going to get ya.” And he just kept whisperin’ and it was– it was really calming,’ Scalise recalled.
Incredibly, the shooter Hodgekinson was the only one killed in the incident, although Scalise was severely wounded and required some 20 units of blood – about twice the amount typically in the human body – as doctors desperately tried to stop his bleeding.
But Scalise said that the only moment he was truly worried was when he was waiting to be loaded onto a medevac chopper that had been rushed to the ballfield.
‘I think I told some of the paramedics, “Don’t let me bleed out on this field”,’ he recalled.
FULL HOUSE: Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., returned to Capitol Hill Thursday, heralded by fellow lawmakers on both sides of the aisle
Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., blows a kiss as he speaks on the House floor Thursday, singing praises to his wife, the U.S. Capitol Police and his colleagues for wishing him well
Doctors say he will likely be able to walk again, and maybe even run, but will be left with hundreds of fragments of the bullet in his body for life.
On Thursday, Scalise made his return to Capitol Hill to great fanfare, receiving a roaring ovation as he made his way across the House Floor with the assistance of forearm crutches.
‘Our prayers have been answered,’ gushed House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who had been ‘brought to tears’ upon first seeing Scalise, the body’s number three Republican, back at work.
‘You have no idea how great this feels to be back here at work in the people’s House,’ Scalise told the crowd. ‘I am definitely a living example that miracles really do happen,’ he said.