After watching Vester Lee Flanagan II fire the initial shots, Ms. Gardner flinched and moved away before he fired a gun pointed directly at her face, her husband, Tim Gardner, said in a telephone interview on Friday.

Mr. Flanagan missed “a couple of times” before finally shooting her in the back, Mr. Gardner said.

“She must have just moved at the right time,” Mr. Gardner said, “and then she rolled into a ball and tucked into a fetal position.”

Ms. Gardner stayed on the ground for about 10 minutes until emergency workers arrived, he said, and was able to walk to an ambulance and call her husband on the way to the hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery. Doctors removed part of her colon, and more operations are expected to repair damage to her intestines.

Her recovery is expected to take several months, but Mr. Gardner said she was in good spirits.

Ms. Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, was in the middle of an interview about tourism at the lake when Mr. Flanagan approached the group and fired during a live television broadcast.

Viewers watched in horror as the broadcast showed Ms. Parker screaming and stumbling backward.

Mr. Flanagan, who had been fired by the television station about two years ago, then posted his own footage of the shooting to his social media accounts. He later killed himself after a police chase.