When I first heard about Jamie Rohrs–the man who left his fiancee, Patricia Legarreta and two young children in the theater when all the chaos broke out at the shooting in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater on Thursday night–my initial reaction was shock.
I mean, come one, how could anyone leave the women he loves, along with his 4-year-old daughter and small infant son, behind if their lives were in mortal danger?
But after watching their heartbreaking interview on CNN, I have to admit, no one really knows exactly how they are going to react in such an extreme, life-threatening situation. Sure, we all want to tell ourselves that we would leap to action and embrace only the most heroic of instincts, but really: Who knows?
Here's Rohr's emotional retelling of what happened:
"I'm trying to keep him low. … And he's crying," Rohrs said. "People are running all over. I'm tripping and falling. I don't know if I laid him down or sat him down. I'm wondering maybe there's more of them. [I'm thinking] 'He's crying and they're going to come get me.' I look up to see if I can run. I'm ducking, dodging, turning left, turning right. … Every time you hear a gun shot, it's like 'Oh, I'm dead.'"
Embedded content: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFZ7C5-h_m4
"It just felt like the worst thing ever because my son's still in there," he told ABC News. "My girlfriend is still in there. I'm out here. Who leaves their child there?"
It sounds like Rohrs is going to be torturing himself about his decisions enough without people jumping in and trying to judge him. He will have to think about how he was able to leave his family behind for a long time and I'm sure he and his soon-to-be-wife will be turning this incident over in their heads for years to come.
Rohr eventually returned to the theater to pick up his wife and kids after Patricia called him.
What do you think? Would you ever be able to forgive your fiance or husband if he left you in a situation like this?
