AURORA, Col. & RENO, Nev. (NBC News, KRNV & MyNews4.com) - Jonathan Blunk, 26, always wanted to be a hero, according to his friends and family. “He always talked about if he were going to die, he wanted to die a hero,” his estranged wife, Chantel Blunk, told NBC News from Reno, Nev.
Blunk attended the movie with a friend, Jansen Young, who credited him with saving her life. When the shooting broke out, Young said Blunk, a military veteran, threw her to the ground and told her to stay down. "Jon just took a bullet for me," Young told the Today show.
Chantel Blunk said her husband graduated from Reno’s Procter Hug High School in 2004 and enlisted in the Navy, serving out of San Diego aboard the USS Nimitz. The couple, who met in high school, married in 2007.
He left the service in 2009 and after separating from his wife moved to Colorado, where he worked for a hardware store. After a franctic day of trying to get information about her husband’s fate, Chantel said FBI agents arrived at her home Friday evening and confirmed her worst fears.
In addition to his wife, Blunk leaves behind two young children, a girl, 4, and a boy, 2.
Chantel said plans to bring the body home to Reno, where he will be buried with military honors.
She has set up an account through Wells Fargo to raise money for the funeral and transportation costs.
AURORA, Col. (NBC News) - Amid the booms of gunfire and smoke from tear gas in a crowded Aurora, Colo., movie theater, Jansen Young felt Jonathan Blunk, who she said is her boyfriend, give her one final push under a seat to shield her – a move she believes saved her life. But Jon Blunk didn’t survive the attack on the Friday midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” outside Denver. "Jon just took a bullet for me," Young, a 21-year-old who recently became a certified veterinarian technician, told the Today Show. The couple, dating since October, according to Young, had been surprised to be able to get tickets on the day of the popular movie’s premiere.
When the alleged assailant, James Eagan Holmes, began his attack on the crowd, Blunk, who Young said had some military experience, knew what was going on, Young said. "He knew and threw me on the ground, and was like, 'We have to get down and stay down,'" she said.
Sparks, NV (KRNV & MyNews4.com) -- News Four has received reports that one of the victims of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado has family in Sparks.
News Four will continue to post more information as it becomes available.
