Senator Jeff Flake recounts baseball practice shooting

One of the Republican Party lawmakers who happened to be at the Congressional Baseball practice where a shooting happened Wednesday was Arizona Senator Jeff Flake.

Sen. Flake was on the field for final practice before the charity baseball game, which is still scheduled for Thursday. He said the GOP members were "sitting ducks", and the Capitol Police security detail assigned to Rep. Steve Scalise likely saved their lives.

"All of a sudden, we heard a very loud shot," said Sen. Flake. "Everybody thought 'sounds like a gun'. The gunman was over by the third base dugout, with a clear view of the field and everybody on it. A lot of us dove into the dugout and tried to get as many as we could, but at that point, there was firing behind us from the security detail, the Capitol Police, and I started yelling back, 'are you friendly?' - making sure that it was our guy, because we didn't know if there were other shooters that had us surrounded, and we're coming into the dugout."

Rep. Scalise, shot in the hip by the gunman, was laying near second base.

"He was coherent the whole time," said Sen. Flake. "He laid out there alone for 10 minutes. We couldn't get to him while there were shots. So finally, when I heard the shooter was down, I just ran low out to Steve [Scalise], and started putting pressure on the wound."

Rep. Scalise was airlifted to a nearby hospital, as Sen. Flake reached out to the wounded Congressman's wife.

"I got Steve Scalise's phone and called his wife," said Sen. Flake. "I just didn't want her to wake up and hear the news and not know what was going on."