If not for a book he had just checked out of the library, Jason Derfuss may have been the fourth Florida State University (FSU) student taken to the hospital with a gunshot wound.
According to NBC News, the 21-year-old humanities major said he did not even know he was shot at until he fled the FSU library and went home. Early Thursday morning, someone entered the FSU library and opened fire, wounding three people before police killed him in a shootout.
Derfuss said he heard a gunshot before he turned around the spot the shooter, who was later identified as an FSU alumnus and attorney. Derfuss then bolted out the door and reached his car, where he eventually made it home safe.
"There is no way I should be alive," he told NBC News. "Literally, those books saved my life.
"I knew it was a gunshot right away and slowly turned around to see the gunman running toward another student and shoot him two times."
When he opened up his backpack, he and his friend saw the books inside shredded to pieces with the bullet in the copy of "The Oxford Context of Wyclif's Thought" he earlier checked out.
"I was about 50 yards away and ran to my car and called my dad, who told me to call 911," he said. "I pulled out the books and saw they were all ripped apart.
"I started examining them and my friend found a bullet in the back page."
Two FSU students are in the hospital from their wounds, CNN reported, and one is in critical condition while the other is stable. The third person wounded was treated on the scene for a minor grazing. Police came upon the shooter outside the library, where they demanded he lay down his weapon, which he ignored and opened fire. Police returned fire and shot and killed him.
"It's crazy: One minute I am checking out books and the next I am crying on my bedroom floor thinking I shouldn't be alive," Derfuss told NBC News. "Those books saved me, and God saved me."
