Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump gestures while surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents as he is helped off the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

YOUNGSTOWN — Among the thousands of people at the Donald Trump rally Saturday night in Butler, Pa., was T.L. Wagner of Youngstown.

The former president and presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential race was shot in his right ear shortly after Trump began speaking in what the FBI is calling an assassination attempt.

“I didn’t really see it happen, but I saw the chaotic aftermath,” Wagner said by phone Sunday afternoon from a friend’s house in Pittsburgh.

He was among a group of 10 who attended the rally together, and he was the only one from Ohio in the group.

“It was a spur of the moment decision to go because my friend had VIP tickets, and I was going to Pittsburgh Sunday anyway to visit friends, so I went,” Wagner said.

He said he was sitting about 50 to 60 feet away to Trump’s right and he had just taken out his camera to snap some photos when Trump — along with many others in the crowd — got down.

“I didn’t hear the gunshots because of my hearing impairment, plus it was very loud at the rally. All I could hear was people around me yelling ‘get down! Get down!’ It was just a sea of people getting down,” Wagner said.

He said he still was unsure what happened, but could see Secret Service and FBI officers surrounding Trump and escorting him out of the venue. He caught a glimpse of Trump with blood on the side of his face and thought the former president had suffered a gunshot wound to the head.

Before he left the rally, Wagner learned the bullet hit Trump’s ear and three other men had been wounded, one fatally.

“I was impressed with the crowd. No one was panicking and there was not a stampede, which was my next concern,” Wagner said.

He said he had to show his ID and invitation before he was allowed to leave the parking lot, but it only took him about 30 minutes to arrive at his friend’s house because he took a back way through Evans City, a Pittsburgh borough. Wagner grew up not far from there and knows the area well.

“It took my friends two hours just to get out of the parking lot and another two hours to get home because there was a logjam of traffic,” he said.

Wagner has been interested in politics since he was young. His parents were involved in politics and his mother was the first woman legislative liaison for Pennsylvania Sen. Frank Geltz. He has attended 11 presidential inaugurations on both sides of the aisle, with his first being Richard Nixon’s as a boy.

He didn’t make it to the most recent inaugurations for various reasons. He has a collection of pins from each one.

“I had no intention of going (to the Trump rally). I normally don’t like events like that. I didn’t even come out into the bleachers until Trump was ready to speak because I didn’t want to hear the other speakers,” Wagner said. “I didn’t sleep well at all last night thinking about how much worse it could have been.”

Have an interesting story? Email Metro Editor Marly Reichert at mreichert@tribtoday.com.