COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) -
"When your kid calls you and tells you, 'I almost got shot tonight' it messes up your day."
From Aurora, Colorado, 28-year-old Brandon Hoover called his parents in Columbia at 3 a.m Friday.
"His first words to her were 'I'm okay'," said Michael Hoover describing the phone call. "I'm calling to let you know I'm okay."
Brandon's dad didn't know what happened or that his son, his only child, managed to escape a massacre.
"We said, 'we don't know anything about where you are, why you are where you are or what supposedly has happened,'" said Hoover. "'So, tell us.'"
Hoover was shocked to hear what came next.
"'I could be dead,'" Hoover recalls his son telling him. "He said that. 'I probably should be dead if I had waited a few more seconds. He had already thrown the gas canister and was going to start shooting and if we stayed there, he was 20 feet from me. I could see everything he was wearing -- the gas mask, helmet, everything had on indicated he was serious. He was ready to cause some trouble and he did.'"
On Facebook Brandon said he ran to the aisle, jumped over the railing and ran into the lobby before he heard the gunshots.
Hoover said Brandon told him the gunman seemed to appear out of nowhere in front of the screen.
"He's exhausted. He's upset," said Hoover. "Freaked out. Every kind of negative emotion you can think of because when you can't even go out to enjoy a movie without fear of losing your life - boy, that's a different world than it used to be."
While Michael is heartbroken by the tragedy, he's happy to hear his son's voice.
"Well, instead of being here talking to you, I could be on a plane getting ready to go identify my son," said Hoover. "I could be right now in the Atlanta airport waiting to catch a connecting flight to Denver to go to the morgue tonight."
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Michael Hoover describes phone call from son who was in Aurora, CO theatre
