Three Strangers Tried Desperately To Save College Baseball Player After He Was Shot In Oklahoma

REUTERS/Bill WaughNeighborhood resident Sherrie Shannon of Duncan, Oklahoma, places flowers at a memorial at the scene where Australian college student Christopher Lane, 23, of Melbourne, was found dead of a gunshot wound on Friday in Duncan, Oklahoma August 21, 2013. Three teenage boys were charged on Tuesday in the killing of Lane, in what police said might have been a thrill killing.As many struggle to understand the senseless murder of 22-year-old Christopher Lane in Oklahoma — and focus on the three teenagers accused in the killing — the story of what happened in his final moments is both heartbreaking and somewhat hopeful.

Out for an afternoon run in Duncan, Okla., Lane was allegedly targeted by three teens who were "bored and wanted to see someone die." After the shot was fired to try and kill Lane, however, there were three different strangers coming together to try and save his life.

Nick O'Malley with Australian newspaper The Age has the story, which profiles Richard Rhodes and Lindsey Moore, contractors who were painting a house nearby, and Joyce Smith, a woman who pulled her car over after thinking the gunshot was her tire going flat.

None of the three knew Lane.

From The Age:

"I was like this, telling him, 'buddy, stay with us, stay with us,'" Rhodes said, demonstrating how he knelt by Lane and looked into his eyes. By then, Lane was taking long desperate breaths, punctuated by ominous silences. Another woman pulled over and came to help.

"He's been shot, we're fixing to lose him," Rhodes told her. Soon the gasps ended. They could not find a pulse. Together they rolled him over and the woman began chest compressions as Rhodes breathed into Lane's mouth.

Their desperate attempt to save him stopped after a few minutes, with Smith telling Rhodes, "Honey, he's gone." She then closed his eyes with her fingertips, according to The Age.