'I said my goodbyes': Survivor recalls mass stabbing at Michigan Walmart

Aaron Boudot recalled thinking he was going to die when he became one of 11 victims of a stabbing spree at a Walmart in Michigan in July.

Aaron Boudot thought he was going to die.

It was July 26, and moments before, Boudot had shielded his wife from a stranger’s blade during a terrifying knife attack at a Michigan Walmart. So that stranger — whom authorities later identified as Bradford James Gille — began slashing him, slicing an artery in his right arm and stabbing him in the back, Boudot recalled.

“I lost three liters of blood in definitely less than 40 seconds,” Boudot, 41, said in his first interview about the mass stabbing, which injured 11 people. “I wasn’t going to last long. I said my goodbyes.”

Thanks to another stranger who quickly tied a tourniquet “in exactly the right place,” Boudot said, those goodbyes were premature.

A man carries a knife while running inside a Walmart near Traverse City, Mich., on July 26.Grand Traverse County Sheriff's OfficeBoudot recalled his near-death experience as NBC News obtained security video from inside the Traverse City Walmart that shows a man believed to be the attacker running through the store with a large green bag strapped to his back. He appears to jab at customers who, in some cases, can be seen tumbling to the ground.