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My friend Jessica Ghawi was killed in the #Aurora Shooting-she was an aspiring sportscaster-she will be missed yfrog.com/oc7ruuhj — Natalie Tejeda (@natalietejeda) July 20, 2012

“I’m not an EMT or a police officer. I’m not trained to handle crime and murder,” Ghawi wrote in a blog post on June 5.

“Gun crimes are fairly common where I grew up in Texas, but I never imagined I’d experience a violent crime first hand. I’m on vacation and wanted to eat and go shopping. Everyone else at the mall probably wanted the same thing. I doubt anyone left for the mall imagined they witness [sic] a shooting.”

Reached in Helotes, Texas, on Friday morning, Ghawi’s father Nick said his son flew out to Denver as soon as the family heard about the shooting.

Initially, authorities had not confirmed his daughter had died, he said.

“That’s why our son flew right away, he’s an EMT and a firefighter and he should be able to get through and confirm,” Nick said.

[np-related]

A post on Ghawi’s brother Jordan’s blog details what allegedly happened after the gunman entered the theatre and started firing his gun, according to Ghawi’s friend, who was present.

Ghawi was hit in the leg first and her friend did his best to administer first aid, the blog post says. Her friend was then hit on the lower half of his body. When Ghawi suddenly stopped screaming, her friend looked over and saw she’d been shot in the head.

“[The friend] then took what may have been his only chance to escape the line of fire and exited the structure where he then contacted my mother,” Jordan Ghawi wrote. “[The friend’s] actions are nothing but heroic.”

Tributes to the young woman began pouring out online and on Twitter. Condolences came from the You Can Play Project, an organization founded by the son of Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke.