'I called to God to save me, and he answered my plea,' boy shot 7 times at school tells church congregation

By John C. Ensslin
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Columbine High School shooting victim Mark Taylor Jr. turns 17 today, and that in itself is a miracle, his family and his doctor say.

Wednesday night was the first time the teen-ager told a Colorado audience about how his faith in God convinced him he would survive several bullet wounds.

"I remember being in the ambulance afraid of dying," Taylor told several hundred people gathered at the Colorado Community Church in Cherry Hills. "I called to God to save me, and he answered my plea. I knew right then, I was certain that God was going to save my life."

Taylor was one of the first students shot April 20, twice from behind and then five more times as killer Eric Harris fired rounds into his chest.

His family physician, Dr. Bill Deagle, told the audience how he spoke by phone that day to the University Hospital surgeon who was trying to save Taylor's life.

"I'm looking at a dead man," Deagle quoted the surgeon as saying. No one expected Taylor to survive, in part because the bullets had pierced his spleen and ripped through the area right behind the aorta.

Mark Taylor had enrolled in Columbine just a few weeks before the shooting. In a soft, measured tone, he told the people at the church about the events of that day.

He had been sitting with friends on a hill outside of the school waiting to go for lunch inside the cafeteria. They were talking about religion.

He remembers bending over right before the first shots rang out.

"I was still bending over when an unbelievable pain hit my upper left body. I saw gushing blood oozing from the six-inch hole in my upper thigh.

"I screamed, 'Oh my God.' I yelled, 'Help me."' Then he saw Harris and his accomplice, Dylan Klebold.

"Their eyes darted back and forth like wild animals."

He watched as Harris went over to student Rachel Scott and shot her as she tried to get up.

"I was in so much pain I could hardly breath. No one was helping me. God helped me."

Taylor said several students trampled over him as they ran for safety, thinking he was dead.

Finally, a police officer dragged his body behind a shed.

He remembered how frightened the doctors and nurses looked when he arrived at University Hospital. He remembers asking himself "Why, Jesus, why is this happening?"

Deagle said that was when miracles started happening.

"There really is no way this child should be alive today at all."

Deagle is writing a book about Taylor's experience. He intends to call it, Mark Taylor, a Prayer for Columbine.

Taylor's mother, Donna Taylor, told the audience -- which took up a collection to help the family with rehabilitation costs -- that the experience tested her faith in God. But it also strengthened it.

"I was questioning God. I said, 'Why me, Lord?"' the mother said. But then she remembered a passage from Scripture about "all things coming together for good. I said, 'Lord, all things?' and he said, 'All things."'

"I've changed a lot," she said. "I used to not listen to the Lord until it was pounded into me.

"When God speaks to me now, I just do it -- no questions."

Contact John Ensslin at (303) 892-5291 or ensslinj@rockymountainnews.com.