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El Dorado priest offers aid to shooting victim

By Melodie Woerman

Editor, The Harvest

On a normal Sunday morning, the Rev. Ron Peak is up early, stops at the convenience store to buy a newspaper and something to drink and then heads to Trinity Church, El Dorado, where he can spend a few moments of quiet before the start of the day’s worship services.

But for Peak, rector of the parish, April 2 was anything but normal. His usual stop at the QuikTrip put him first on the scene of a robbery that left the store clerk shot and injured.

Peak said he saw nothing unusual when he approached the store about 6:20 that morning, but another patron leaving the building warned him that someone inside has a gun. Peak jumped into his car but decided not to leave. Instead he left his seat and crouched behind the back of his car.

In a matter of moments he saw a man leave the store, shove a handgun into his pants, jump into a truck and drive away.

Peak entered the store and found the clerk, 20-year-old Mathias Oller, lying on the floor.

“I was shocked by what I saw,” he said. “There was a little blood under one eye. He was lying on the floor with his eyes open and arms out.”

Peak uttered a quick prayer and then, relying on first aid training, checked the man’s pulse and pupils and determined they were normal. “He was breathing better than I was at that point,” he said.

A quick check found no other bleeding, and the arrival of another store patron, a correctional officer with a cell phone, meant help was summoned.

Help and comfort

At that point Peak said he mostly wanted to keep Oller calm and assure him help was on the way. “I was very fortunate I didn’t have to do any more than just check on him,” he said. “I kept my hand on his chest. That helped me monitor his breathing and heartbeat, and it also helps provides a sense of comfort.”

He said he even joked with the young man, telling him, “Well, Matt, it looks like you’re going to live to work another day at QuikTrip.”

While an ambulance arrived promptly, Peak said he had no sense of time at that point. “I don’t know if it was 30 seconds or half an hour,” he said, although he guesses it was about eight to 10 minutes before the emergency personnel arrived.

It was only later that Peak learned the nature of Oller’s injury. Given the small amount of blood he first observed, Peak thought a bullet might have glanced off the young man’s cheek. Instead, a bullet had lodged in Oller’s sinus cavity, resting only half an inch from his brain. He was scheduled to have the bullet removed surgically days after the shooting, although he was able to be up and around before that.

‘Not sure what they got’

Once police officers arrived on the scene, Peak gave them his statement and headed to Trinity in time for the 8 a.m. service, where he shared his experience with the worshipers.

“I wasn’t thinking straight,” he said. “I explained everything to the congregation and asked for their prayers. I did tell them this was one time I wished I had prepared notes for my sermon. I’m really not sure what the people at that first service got.”

Peak’s efforts garnered local attention, landing him on the front page of the local newspaper. He seemed embarrassed by all the attention, noting that he did nothing more than anyone else in that situation would do.

“Several people have told me, ‘You were the Good Samaritan,’” he said. “No, I wasn’t. That’s a story about who your neighbor is. The Good Samaritan was a foreigner whose help was not expected. What I did was what anyone should do in their community. I did what anybody would do.”

He credits his past training as a first responder with helping him offer appropriate aid. “The response is like muscle memory,” he said.

In the days after the shooting Peak said he kept track of Oller’s condition but hadn’t tried to speak to him, wanting to give the man some privacy.

Suspect captured

The man who is suspected of shooting Oller was captured just minutes later, reportedly driving the victim’s truck taken from the store’s parking lot. He has been charged with attempted murder, aggravated robbery and felony theft.