‘Boy in Window’ Took ‘Shortest’ Way to Safety

LITTLETON, Colo. —  Bleeding from three gunshot wounds and unable to move his right arm or leg, Patrick Ireland still saw a way out of the Columbine High School rampage: the window.

He pulled himself across broken glass, and, as the nation watched on TV, police pulled him from the second-story window until he dropped to safety.

“It was the shortest way down, out,” Ireland said Friday. “My whole right side was paralyzed. I felt confident that there’d be someone there to catch me.”

Ireland spoke publicly for the first time since April 20, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students, a teacher and themselves. Ireland was one of 23 students wounded. “We know that everyone has been wondering what happened to the boy in the window, and he’s doing really, really well,” said Ireland’s mother, Kathy.

Ireland was shot once in the right foot and twice on the left side of his head, suffering neurological damage that mimics a stroke. Doctors have not determined the extent of his permanent damage.