For every man like Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock, intent on killing lots of people, there are many more like Jonathan Smith, intent on saving a lot of people.

Amid the chaos, Smith was one of those who jumped into action to save lives. And the 30-year-old copy machine repairman is paying a price for ushering more than 30 others to safe hiding places behind cars.

When he saw that a couple of young girls weren’t fully hidden, he stood to move toward them and was shot in the neck. “I couldn’t feel anything in my neck. There was a warm sensation in my arm,” he told the Washington Post from the Sunrise Hospital lobby Monday afternoon.

He was lucky to walk out of the hospital — albeit with a fractured collarbone, a cracked rib and a bruised lung — but the bullet remains where it struck him in the neck; doctors fear removing it would cause more damage. “I might have to live with this bullet for the rest of my life,” Smith said.

He believes another hero, an off-duty cop who stopped the bleeding and hailed a car to get him to medical care, saved his life.

After his story went viral, Smith opted to address his new hero status: “I don’t see myself that way,” he said. “I would want someone to do the same for me. No one deserves to lose a life coming to a country music festival.”

But not many people run toward blood and bullets in defense of that principle. That’s what makes Jonathan Smith a hero.