Thomas Gunderson was one of the almost 500 people wounded in the Las Vegas shooting attack at the Route 91 Harvest Festival last weekend.
He was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the leg.
Gunderson was laying in his hospital bed Wednesday when President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump swung by. The President and first lady went to Las Vegas to meet and talk with survivors of the shooting, as well as first responders, doctors and nurses during the visit.
As Trump neared Gunderson’s hospital room, the wounded man made it a point, despite his leg injury, to stand up when the President entered his room.
“I will never lie down when the President of this great country comes to shake my hand!” Gunderson wrote on the Facebook video he posted of the brief meeting. “There may be plenty of issues in this country but I will always respect my country, my president and my flag. Shot in the leg or not, I will stand to show my President the respect he deserves!”
The video has been viewed millions of times.
In the video, Melania Trump enters the room first and greets Gunderson, who begins to get out of bed. She tells him he doesn’t have to get up, but he insists. When the President comes into the room, Trump shakes Gunderson’s hand and says “This guy looks tough to me.”
In a later post, Gunderson said he shared the video on Facebook, “with the intention of spreading an uplifting message during this horrific time in our country.”
Fifty-eight people lost their lives in the massacre at the country music festival, the worst mass shooting in modern American history.
