Jerry Pinksen of Newfoundland and Labrador and girlfriend Danielle Kane rushed to help a gunshot victim on Danforth Avenue in Toronto on Sunday. (Byron Abalos/GoFundMe)

Jerry Pinksen and his girlfriend of almost two years Danielle Kane were enjoying a night out, and dinner with a friend in the Greektown, Danforth area of Toronto Sunday night.

Pinksen hails from Straitsview on the Northern Peninsula and now lives in Toronto. He describes hearing the initial shots fired by 29-year-old Faisal Hussain from the patio table where his group was seated at 7Numbers restaurant.

"We didn't know what it was, fireworks or something, but there was 10 or 12 shots heard," Pinksen told CBC Radio's St. John's Morning Show.

"Then the serving staff told us to rush inside from the restaurant. So we went inside … We weren't sure what was going on. Another customer who was on the front of the building, the north-east side, she came screaming up to us saying that someone was shot in front of the building."

An emergency room nurse in Toronto, Pinksen's initial instinct was to go outside to help the wounded. Kane, a nursing student, felt the same pull.

"I was thinking to myself, 'I have to go help, I have the knowledge, I can do something,'" Pinksen said.

"I walked out of the west exit, I walked a few steps, and I remember hearing a click. Not sure what it was, but I looked back and I saw the shooter about 20 feet away from me across the street."

The shooter raised his arms quickly and shot toward Pinksen, but he was able to duck behind a nearby patio.

Girlfriend hit

"Then I heard Danielle scream," he said.

"I jumped up again, and ran back into the restaurant where she was standing. She got shot right in the emergency exit on the west side. So I pushed her in a little bit, and I closed the door, shots still going over us."

Pinksen describes the shooter as being calm, walking casually through the chaotic scene.

"Nothing was there. He was so calm," he said.

"I should've thought that someone walking calmly would be the shooter."

Danielle Kane and Jerry Pinksen rushed to help a victim during the Danforth shooting in Toronto on Sunday. Kane was hit by a bullet which shattered her T11 vertebra. (Submitted by Byron Abalos)

As he got back inside the restaurant, his trauma training kicked in. He immediately tended to his wounded girlfriend.

"She told me that she was in a lot of pain, and she couldn't feel her legs," Pinksen said, his voice cracking.

"I kept looking around for her injuries, and then I noticed on her back that blood was coming out. I just found the exit wound. We couldn't find the entry wound. I just kept reminding her to keep breathing through the pain and that it was going to be OK and I felt really sorry that she was going through this."

Click here to listen to the full interview with Pinksen.

Staying strong

Pinksen says he felt grief and guilt at first, since it was his idea to leave the restaurant to tend to the person wounded by Hussain.

"That's why initially I couldn't talk about it. I knew I felt so guilty," Pinksen said.

"But I knew that even if I told Danielle to stay in the restaurant, she wouldn't have listened to me. She's selfless, and caring and I knew that she would've went out, no matter what, with me … I know that Danielle is strong and that she would do the exact same thing I did."

Kane, a 31-year-old second year nursing student, did just that as she followed Pinksen outside.

Recovery

The bullet that hit Kane went through her diaphragm, chest wall, stomach, and shattered her T11 vertebra which caused compression and a contusion in her spinal cord. She was moved directly to St. Michael's Hospital and wheeled into an operating room.

"This morning would be the third of her surgeries," Pinksen said Friday morning.

"She's had quite a lot of damage in her chest wall, but she has been recuperating quite well. But the real test is the spinal cord injury, because we won't know the true severity of it until she starts rehab."

A #DaniStrong GoFundMe page was launched to help cover the costs of her recovery and outlines the struggles Kane and Pinksen will be facing in the future and post-recovery.

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