EXCLUSIVE: Wilkinsburg Mass Shooting Survivor Speaks Out

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- John Ellis, 47, faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Ellis is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot during a backyard cookout at a home on Franklin Avenue in Wilkinsburg on March 9.

He told KDKA all he remembers is hearing a popping sound and then playing dead after he realized he was shot.

"It really didn't dawn on me that I got shot until I got hit two more times, that's when I got out of the chair and tried to run to the front of my house and that's where I collapsed," he said.

Ellis lives next door and was visiting his neighbors and having some food during the cookout. He was one of three people wounded by two gunman who killed five people, including a pregnant woman.

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More than a month later, he still feels deep pain for the victims and their families.

"You killed all females," he said. "And an unborn child. And that hurts, that hurts."

He said he will never forget how all the victims were gunned down by a man with an AK-47 because the back door was blocked by one of the victims who was killed.

Since the shooting, Ellis has been undergoing therapy in the hospital. He was shot in the back, in the side and has a bullet is still lodged in his shoulder.

Now, he's worried about medical bills, which add up to about $1,300 a day.

"I have a ton a bills. About what? Some ---hole going to shoot up a party," Ellis said. "You're not tough, you are a coward. You shot up a whole family, and the person you went to kill is still alive."

In the meantime, he is hoping county police find the suspects as soon as possible.

Police have reported that several suspects have been identified, but no one has been charged.