Editors’ note: This story contains details of a mass casualty event and gun violence.
Every once in a while, Brenda Hollins will notice her son Mike, slumped in his hospital bed, staring longingly into space or mysteriously shaking his head. She’ll see him toss and turn while trying to sleep, wake up and then sit up, his eyes wide open glancing toward the ceiling.
Brenda knows that in those moments Mike is reliving one of the most terrifying moments that a human can experience.
During a mass shooting Sunday on a charter bus on Virginia’s campus, Mike Hollins, a running back on the UVA football team, rushed back onto the bus in an attempt to save lives, only to find himself face to face with a gunman who had just shot to death three of his teammates.
He was then shot in the back.
“He saw him raise the gun and he turned and ran,” says Brenda Hollins. “I know he’s reliving those moments. He doesn’t have to say anything.”
Four days after the shooting and two surgeries later, Mike Hollins is progressing so quickly that doctors are amazed. As of Thursday afternoon, Brenda says her 21-year-old son is walking with assistance and is weaning himself off pain medications.
Courtesy of Gordon McKernan
He needed emergency surgery Sunday night to remove the bullet, which entered through his back and came so close to exiting through the abdomen that Mike could see the metal object protruding from his stomach. The bullet nicked his kidney and damaged some of his small intestine, likely coming dangerously close to rupturing his bowels.
During a second surgery, on Tuesday, doctors removed a part of his small intestine but verified that the bullet caused no other serious damage.
“They are amazed at his vitals and how quickly he’s up and walking and moving around,” Brenda says. “There’s a long road ahead. But Mike seems to think the road is shorter than what [doctors] think.”
Mike, a Baton Rouge native in his fourth year at UVA, was one of two survivors of Sunday’s shooting, which left receivers Lavel Davis Jr. and Devin Chandler and defensive end D’Sean Perry dead. They were killed in an incident that unfolded on a charter bus following a class trip to Washington, D.C. A fifth victim, Marlee Morgan, was also injured but is in good condition.
For two days, Mike Hollins was in critical condition, on a ventilator and could communicate with his mother only by writing notes. In one of the first notes to her, he asked about his teammates. “How are they doing?” he wrote to her Monday.
For fear of upsetting him at an unstable time, she did not inform him of the news until Wednesday, an emotional moment that was followed by an unexpected visit. The families of Davis and Perry visited Hollins on Thursday.
“He was able to release [his feelings] and hug and embrace them. That was good for them,” Brenda says. “It was very, very emotional. He was able to tell them how much [his teammates] meant to him and how hard it’s going to be to live without them.”
Authorities arrested former Virginia walk-on running back Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. in connection with the crimes, charging him with three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony.
Brenda says her son did not know Jones. He’d never even seen him on campus. He first met him on the trip to D.C., where Mike’s African American theater class watched The Ballad of Emmett Till at the Mosaic Theater, about 1.5 miles from the U.S. Capitol.
The group had dinner in the city before trekking the 2.5 hours back to Charlottesville. As the bus approached the Culbreth Parking Garage on UVA’s campus, Jones opened fire in what appeared to be a targeted assault on the football players on board. Mike Hollins, already having exited the bus, rushed back onto it.
“That is Michael,” Brenda says. “He will do that. His friends and brothers were on that bus. He was going to help them. He didn’t know how. He knew he was going to try to do it. When I heard he went back, I could see that.”
But almost as soon as Mike reentered the bus, he came upon Jones, who lifted the gun toward him. He turned his back, leaped off the bus and darted into the garage. Jones shot him then.
“He thought he was chasing him so he continued to run,” Brenda says.
“He felt a hot piercing. He knew he was shot,” says Gordon McKernan, a lawyer in Baton Rouge and spokesman for the family who has employed Brenda at his law office for the last seven years. McKernan flew to Charlottesville on Tuesday to be with Brenda; Mike’s 28-year-old sister, Ebony; and 10-year-old son, Deuce.
Mike ran for a ways into the parking garage, McKernan says. At some point, he realized that he should not be alone bleeding out in a dark corner of the garage. He made his way back to the area where the bus was and got help from a nursing student who had been part of the class trip. The ambulance arrived moments later.
Courtesy of Gordon McKernan
The police haven’t spoken to Mike yet, as they have given him time to recover, Brenda says.
The exact motive of the shooting remains shrouded in mystery. Jones was not part of the African American theater class but was invited on the trip. In an interview with WWBT in Richmond, Jones’s father, Christopher Sr., said his son had seemed “paranoid” and talked of being the subject of bullying. University of Virginia police confirmed a hazing incident involving Jones, but witnesses at the time reportedly would not cooperate.
Ryan Lynch, who was on the bus at the time of the shooting and is one of the only witnesses to have spoken publicly about the incident, told multiple media outlets that the bus filled with smoke and screams as the shooting began. Seated in the front of the bus, away from the original shooting in the back, Lynch and a friend dropped to the floor upon hearing the first round of shots. She glanced up to see the gun-wielding Jones Jr. walking down the aisle. He exited the bus, at which point she heard more gunfire, presumably the shot that hit Hollins.
Davis, Chandler and Perry were shot toward the back of the bus. Lynch and a friend saw Davis slumped onto the floor of the bus, face down and bleeding from bullet wounds. He had a faint pulse. The two women then fled the bus to call for help and out of fear that the shooter would return.
“Chris got up and pushed Lavel,” Lynch told CBS Philadelphia. “And then after he pushed him, he was like, ‘You guys are always messing with me.’ Said something weird like that, but it was very bizarre because they didn't talk to him the whole trip.”
Back in Baton Rouge, Brenda says she got the call from the hospital at 10:42 p.m. CT Monday. On the other line, a nurse told her that her son had been shot.
“I couldn’t believe it. I had to ask her again. I knew Mike went on a school trip,” she says. “It was the worst phone call you could receive.”
She flew to Charlottesville on Monday and arrived at the UVA campus hospital to see her son on a ventilator, having recovered from emergency surgery to extract the bullet.
“I walked into a nightmare,” she says.
Doctors told her that he survived because of his physical condition. He has several months of rehabilitation ahead, and she’s unsure whether he’ll play football again. But the experience has changed his outlook on life, she says.
It’s made him see the world differently.
“Right now, what I’ve learned today is that his vision is bright. He has a new lease,” she says. “Football was his life for him, but now he’s seeing life differently. I’m just here for the ride. If he does play football, I’ll be in the stands yelling. If he doesn’t, I’ll be in his office somewhere. I’m thankful. I am grateful.
“He was telling me earlier today, ‘Mom, there’s so many things I want to do now!’ Whatever it is, I’m ready for it.”
