By Stefanie Dazio
The Associated Press
Ryan Guidus was enjoying a spontaneous night out Wednesday with his 7-month-old daughter and mother-in-law at Cook’s Corner, a favorite family spot in Orange County that he’s frequented since his own childhood, when gunshots rang out.
First, he thought it was fireworks. But when screaming began and more shots followed, the bar’s popular weekly spaghetti night turned into every parent’s worst nightmare as a retired police sergeant opened fire.
“I just reached into the stroller and ejected my daughter out of that thing, ripped her out of there as fast as I could,” Guidus told The Associated Press on Friday. “It was all a blur, it happened so fast.”
Clutching baby Olive to his chest, Guidus sprinted from the bar’s patio to the back of the property where other patrons were hiding among the hillside trees along an embankment. When more shots erupted, the 36-year-old father handed Olive to a man next to him and jumped 10 feet down before grabbing her back.
Mountain bikers, finishing up a ride in the area, then helped him navigate the brush, one lifting a tree branch for him and his mother-in-law to crawl under, as they escaped to a nearby parking lot. He borrowed another mountain biker’s cellphone — he’d dropped his own in the stroller — to call his wife and his parents.
Only then did the baby start crying. It was nearing bedtime, and she was hungry for a bottle.
“I can’t stop hugging and kissing her,” Guidus said. “I obviously pray to God that she doesn’t remember this. I assume she won’t.”
Authorities said John Snowling killed three people Wednesday, including his wife’s dining companion and a man who approached him as Snowling retrieved additional guns from his truck, and wounded six others. Snowling was fatally shot by deputies within minutes of the rampage.
For Guidus, Cook’s Corner is a family tradition. The bar is where he took his now-wife on their first date….
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