On Feb. 12 at 6:44 p.m., Stacy Hanson's life took a turn. He was one of the four victims wounded in the Trolley Square shooting spree in Salt Lake City.

"The situation changed their lives forever and those around you for the rest of your life," Hanson said. He made his first presentation on the shooting July 6 for the Lehi Community Council monthly workshop series.

Hanson's nightmare began when he had stopped off from his way from work to buy his wife a Valentine's card. He sits before the small audience at Lehi City Hall in a wheelchair. Hanson will later explain his paralysis is a result of being shot at the lower extremity of his spinal cord.

"I thought I would stop by, get everything done on time for once," he said of visiting Cabin Fever for a Valentine Day card for his wife. "Then I heard a pop -- a construction-like pop. We didn't really think anything of it, but then we heard another pop."

Hanson paused.

"It's amazing how you bond with people you don't even know," he said.

He recalled the store manager saying "OK, I want everyone to get down and I want you to be quiet."

"It was such a surrealistic thing when something like this happens," Hanson said. "This guy comes walking in. He has a sawed-off shotgun and a 38 and you could tell by looking at him he was trying to do something."

Hanson said at the time he felt he had to do something so he stood up and told 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic they all had kids they wanted to get home to, an attempt to humanize the situation.

"Obviously that didn't work," Hanson said. "He said, 'Shut up' and then boom."

The Bosniak immigrant stared at Hanson for a moment Hanson and than the shooting began in earnest.

Five who chose to visit Trolley Square that day died in the massacre in addition to the gunman, Talovic. The killer's rampage was halted by five law enforcement officers, including one off duty officer who had been at a restaurant with his wife prior to the shooting.

The store Hanson was in would have most of the dead..

Once shot, Hanson responded to the teen. "You blankety blank you shot me." Then he laid down getting shot at least twice more.

"It was total carnage," Hanson said. "It was a scene that was so disturbing it was hard to describe."

He said he saw blood spilling towards him in a ever-growing glistening red pool. He tried inching away from the blood without Talovic noticing.

After a while there was a weird silence," he said. "I looked over I saw all these people laying there. It was like a movie."

But it wasn't the dead that brought on the silence, it was Talovic reloading.

Hanson's relief of "Oh good, it's over and I'm alive" to the other extreme of hopelessness, "Well, this is it. He's going to make sure we're all dead."

"I was praying. I was trying to contact every dead relative that could come down and help me," Hanson said. "It was just unbelieveable."

Then he heard " pop pop pop pop pop." "Finally I heard the words 'It's all over. Everyone is safe now,'" Hanson said. "Then the havoc began. Everyone was scrambling to see who was alive and who wasn't."

Talovic was a high school dropout and had history of minor juvenile delinquency. Carrying a shotgun and a handgun, he toted a backpack full of ammunition, more than 96 rounds.

Off-duty police officer Kenneth Hammond and Sgt. Andrew Oblad of the Salt Lake City Police and other officers ended Talovic's rampage by cornering him and shooting him.

Dead also were Teresa Ellis, 29; Bad Frantz, 24; Kirsten Hinckley, 15; Vanessa Quinn, 29; and Jeffery Walker, 53.

Hanson would end up spending one month in intensive care. Two weeks into his recovery he got a perforated stomach.

At first he was so weak he couldn't lift up his head, but he was determined to pull through and survive. It wasn't just a matter of commitment. Hanson says he had help.

"You never realize how good people can be until you realize how bad people can be," he said.of Talovic. "Obviously this was a very disturbed person." He credits others for helping him with their support and steadfastness including his wife Colleen Hanson and Mrs. Utah Tiffany Berg of Eagle Mountain.

"They made it so we could live in our home," Hanson said of Berg. ""It's just amazing how people come together and I think part of it is it helps everyone to heal."

Colleen Hanson has become proactive since the shooting, lobbying for legislative support of a program called Teen Screen, a test that alerts parents and school officials of children with depression and possible suicide tendencies and provides the opportunity for intervention and help.

"People ask me do I hate this guy," he said. "The answer to that is no ... I don't hate Talovic. I hate what he did." He said he can blame the boy's parents for not knowing him enough to know he had a sawed off shot gun, blame the gun dealer, blame the system for letting him fall through the cracks.

"I think if I've learned anything is the fragility of life is to be taken very seriously," he said. "Life is a gift, something to be celebrated. We often take life for granted." He said he has also learned to focus on those things he can control and to stay positive.

"Spend your energy on things you have some control over," he said.

In recovering from his injuries, two broken pelvis bones, a reconstructed bladder, an abdomen full of shot and an incomplete paralysis, Hanson said he is optimistic he will get to walk someday.

Talovic doesn't have that, he said.

"This was an 18-year-old kid who had a whole life in front of him and someone missed something along the way," he said. "It's going to happen more and more. We need to try and make it a more friendly place to be."