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Talking to reporters on Sunday, he broke down in tears, calling the massacre that left at least 22 people dead and more than two dozen wounded “the worst thing I’ve ever been through in my life.”

Oakley. said he didn’t believe it at first when a little kid came running into the sports store where he was shopping and said there was an active shooter at Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, Texas.

Then he walked into Foot Locker and heard gunshots nearby.

“I am in the military and I’ve got my license to carry, so all I think about is get my gun out and think fast,” Oakley said during an interview with KTSM-TV after a gunman killed 20 people and wounded another 26 in the Aug. 3 shooting.

Frightened children ran in all directions, Oakley recalled.

Making his way out of the mall, he saw about a dozen children who were scared and calling out for their parents.

“I saw a whole lot of kids just running around without their parents, so I’m just thinking about the kids, so I pick up as many as possible and carry them with me and another guy does as well,” Oakley said during the interview.

“I’m just focused on the kids that I could not get and the families that were lost,” he continued, in tears. “It hurts me. Like I lost — like they were part of me. I don’t even know the people that died or the kids that I took with me.”

Oakley told CNN that doesn’t have children, but he just tried to do “what I would want somebody else to do” if he was a parent.

“There were so many kids that we couldn’t pick them all up … me and the other guy tried our best to get as many out as possible,” Oakley said.

“I didn’t get any sleep last night,” he told the reporters on Sunday. “I don’t want to think about what happened, because it was tragic. I’m telling you this was the worst thing I’ve ever been through in my life. And I don’t want to keep having flashbacks of what happened.”

He added: “I don’t want to talk about what went on there, because I just want to forget about it all.”