(Radio Iowa) – A retired U.S. Air Force Special Operations member who used to live in Le Mars was sitting just a few feet away from former President Donald Trump during the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania Saturday.

Jim Truemper had seats in the bleachers slightly to the left of Trump. “It happened quick pretty quick i’ll tell you that. I was standing up everybody was cheering, because when Trump first came up on stage he looked up to us in the bleachers and we’re all going crazy,” Truemper says. “And he was just only you know, four or five maybe six minutes into his spiel whenever the first shots rang out.”

He describes how things unfolded from his vantage point. “I heard three shots. The third shot is when he grabbed his ear and he dove to the floor. He took that third hit in his ear, and he dove to the floor and then Secret Service was immediately on him. They were moving into first down to the first shot. And then there were three more rapid shots. And it was over,” he says. Truemper was not far away from the retired Pennsylvania firefighter who was killed in the attack.

“The poor fireman was about 20 feet to my right guy that was that was killed right in front of his family, there were heroic efforts to try to save him, but he was already gone,” Truemper says. Truemper says there were some anxious moments after Trump went down on the stage. “For that 30 seconds we’re all terrified that oh my god, this is really, really bad. Because they’re not standing him up, you know maybe he was critically shot. Then they stood him up and he raised that fist, oh my god the crowd just lost it,” Truemper says.

Truemper says being a witness to the attempted assassination won’t deter him from attending future rallies. Truemper left Le Mars and returned to his hometown near Pittsburgh after retiring from the Air Force.