When the highly disgruntled Vester Lee Flanagan aimed his Glock pistol at Vicki Gardner he expected to kill her. Gardner Expected to be killed. She dove to the ground and curled into a ball and miraculously dodged the first two bullets he fired. But it wasn’t over yet.
Flanagan was, himself a former WDBJ reporter. He’d been fired several years prior and had apparently become vengeful in the time since. The maniac opened fire on a television crew live on the air, publicly murdering reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward. Gardner, a board member for the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce was being interviewed at the time, which meant she was in the crosshairs too…
Flanagan fired for the third time at Gardner and this time he hit his mark. The bullet struck Gardner’s back, grazing her spine. Flanagan walked over to Gardner and started pulling the trigger repeatedly. But the gun misfired. It was over.
Realizing the terror had ended, Gardner stood up after several moments and went to find an ambulance. The bullet still lodged in her back. She was the lone survivor of the attack.
Flanagan later killed himself while being chased by police in a rental car. Tim Gardner watched his wife, Vicki, on the live television broadcast. The reporter and cameraman “never saw him coming until the shots were fired,” Tim Gardner said during an ABC interview.
Vicki has endured several surgeries already and on the road to recovery.