Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn, Alex Teves named the ‘Aurora Three’
Families, friends and people from around the world have turned to social media to express their grief and anger over the shooting rampage that left 12 people dead and 58 injured at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.
But out of tragedy, three men have been identified and labeled as heroes: Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn and Alex Teves — nicknamed “The Aurora Three”
Besides all being in the wrong place at the wrong time on the morning of July 20, Jansen Young, Samantha Yowler and Amanda Lindgren have one other thing in common: each was saved from James Holmes’ murderous rampage by their loving, heroic boyfriends.
Young, Yowler and Lindgren all survived the Batman Movie Massacre this past Friday because their boyfriends jumped on top of them and used their own bodies to shield them from the gunfire. That act of courageousness came at a cost, though, as Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn and Alex Teves all wound up losing their own lives in the process.
“He’s a hero, and he’ll never be forgotten,” a tearful Jansen Young told the New York Daily News of Blunk. “Jon took a bullet for me.”
Her mother, Shellie Young, added: “He was loving, the kind of guy you want your daughter to be with, and ultimately, she’s alive because of this, because he protected her.”
Alex Teves, 24, and Matt McQuinn, 27, went out in similarly gallant fashion.
“He pushed her to the floor to save her and he ended up getting a bullet,” Teves’ aunt, Barbara Slivinske told the Daily News. “He was gonna hit the floor himself, but he never made it.”
According to witnesses, McQuinn leapt onto his girlfriend when she got hit in the knee with a bullet.
“Both the Yowler and McQuinn families thank everyone for their concerns, thoughts and prayers during this difficult time,” the McQuinns’ lawyer, Robert Scott, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Matt perished from the injuries he sustained during the tragic events that unfolded . . . and went home to be with his maker.”
McQuinn, 27, and Yowler met at a Target store in Springfield, Ohio, where they worked.
“He was a great outgoing person,” McQuinn’s former co-worker at the Colorado Target told the Daily News. “We lost a great person and we still can’t picture or realize that he’s gone.”
