It’s an account that’s a combination of horrifying and comforting.
Frank Turek, a prominent Christian apologist, writer, and close friend of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, published a podcast Tuesday describing his relationship with Kirk and the harrowing moments that followed Kirk’s shooting last week in Orem, Utah.
And he offered what might be the only good news to come out of it.
Turek was on stage at Utah Valley University when Kirk was hit. (He was one of the men obliquely accused by social media conspiracists of engaging in “hand signals” linked to the assassination.)
He spent a good deal of his “Cross Examined” podcast discussing his relationship with Kirk, then described the final moments of Kirk’s life.
Turek said he heard a “pop” that sounded like it was nearby, but turned out to be from the killer’s rifle.
He saw Kirk fall back and started to head in his direction when he saw Kirk’s security team on the job. Only then did Turek think of taking cover himself.
Turek then described the frantic struggle to get Kirk into an SUV and rush to a hospital. Turek himself said he jumped into the vehicle’s hatchback just as it was starting to speed from the scene with Kirk’s security team.
En route to the hospital with one back door still open — Kirk was too tall to lay in the SUV with the doors closed, Turpek said — the men prayed.
At one point, they attempted CPR, he said, but he already knew it was too late.
“Charlie wasn’t there,” Turek, who holds a doctoral degree in ministry from South Carolina’s Southern Evangelical Seminary, recounted.
“His eyes were fixed. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking past me. Right into eternity. He was with Jesus already,” Turek described.
“He was killed instantly, and felt absolutely no pain. That’s what I was told later. But of course we had to try.”
At Orem’s Timpanogos Regional Hospital, doctors managed to revive Kirk’s pulse, but it was fleeting, Turek said.
“The doctor later said that we got a pulse because Charlie was a very healthy man,” Turek said. “But the shot was catastrophic, so, 20 or 30 minutes later, the surgeon came out and said he was dead.”
By now, many Americans are probably familiar with the events surrounding Kirk’s death.
Many are aware of his suspected assassin’s arrest, as well as the controversy surrounding leftists openly cheering the murder of a young man whose death left a woman widowed and two children fatherless.
But Turek’s insider account of the shooting itself, the wild ride to the hospital, and the final pronouncement of Kirk’s death are new.
And while the ending isn’t any different, there is one good element:
“If that’s any comfort at all, Charlie didn’t suffer,” Turek said.
It was clear from the moment in the car
“He was gone. He was with Jesus,” Turpek said. “Absent from the body. Present with the Lord. That’s where he was.”
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