Charlie Kirk Assassination Eyewitness Frank Turek recounts the journey to the hospital
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The apologist and Christian author Frank Turek was a few meters away when the founder of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University. In a new episode of Podcast, he told the September 10 shootout and the frantic rush to the hospital where doctors pronounced the 31 -year -old dead.
Kirk set out to Turek years ago for mentoring in Christian apologetics, said Turek in the podcast: “The grandeur of Charlie Kirk: an eye story of his life and his martyrdom.”
Their relationship has flourished, Turek saying that he came to consider Kirk as a son.
On the morning of the event, Turek joined the Kirk team on the car trip to the University of Utah Valley, discussing the potential questions of students and refined answers.
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Charlie Kirk speaks before being killed during the visit to Turning Point at the University of Utah Valley in Orem, Utah, on September 10, 2025. (Tess Crowley / The Deseret News via AP)
After making a quick stop to speak to a group of local entrepreneurs, the team arrived in the open -air location and Kirk started taking photos with supporters and launching hats in the big energetic crowd.
Although Turek told Kirk that he was concerned about the large number of buildings nearby and the risk of security they could pose, he said Kirk seemed to be confident in his private safety and the details of the local police.
Eager to share the excitement, members of the Turek Facetimed family while he was about 30 feet to the right of Kirk. He explained that during a question on transgender violence, he heard a single blow and looked at Kirk falling back.
The crowd reacted after Charlie Kirk, CEO and co-founder of the Conservative Youth Organization Turning Point USA, was filmed at the University of Utah Valley on September 10, 2025 in Orem, Utah. (Tess Crowley / The Deseret News via AP)
“I’m still on the phone, and my daughter-in-law told me that it was the first words out of my mouth:” No, no, no, no, no “,” said Turek. “If your son was touched, what would you do?
Turek and the security team jumped into the SUV that they used to go to the event and rush into a hospital while performing the RCR and praying.
“Charlie is so large, we cannot close the door,” he said. “We have traveled four miles … to the hospital with the open door.”
Turek said he continued to shout: “Come on, Charlie! Come on!”
The police recorded an area after Charlie Kirk, CEO and co-founder of the Conservative Youth Organization, Turnout Point USA, was shot down at the University of Utah Valley on September 10, 2025, in Orem, Utah. (Tess Crowley / The Deseret News via AP)
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While they were frantically at the hospital, Turek said in tears that he had realized that Kirk had disappeared.
“Charlie was not there. His eyes were fixed,” he said. “He didn’t look at me. He looked at me beyond eternity. He was already with Jesus. He was killed instantly and had absolutely no pain.”
Turek said that despite their best efforts, they couldn’t do anything to save Kirk.
“If it is a comfort at all, Charlie has not suffered,” he said. “He had left. He was with Jesus. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. This is where he was.”
Doctors briefly restored Kirk’s pulse to the hospital, but a surgeon said it dead in half an hour, according to Turek.
Hospital staff described Kirk injuries as “catastrophic,” he said.
Charlie Kirk and his wife, Erika Kirk, and their two children at Christmas in December 2024. (Charlie Kirk via Facebook)
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The Turning Point USA team immediately contacted Kirk’s wife, Erika, and sent an airplane to do it, Turek said. They also called vice-president JD Vance.
When Erika arrived at the hospital, Turek said she had sworn to continue her inheritance, even taking a moment to reassure him in the middle of her own anxiety.
“She said,” He loved you and he did what he wanted to do, “said Turek. “Then we stood each other, and she expressed that she wanted Charlie’s heritage to continue. … This woman will not be refused. If this assassin thought he was going to end the heritage of Charlie, he just poured the essence on it and that Erika was going to carry out the accusation.”
Watch: Click here for a full episode of the podcast
The group did not have access to the SUV in which they traveled or their personal articles due to an initial police investigation. However, once the vehicle was cleared, Turek said that Erika had asked for her husband’s cross necklace, who had disappeared during the rush.
Turek found the cross draped on his own computer bag, on which Kirk was lying while the team led him to the hospital.
Erika then raised the necklace on a heartbreaking photo captured as she escorted her body to a chapel in Arizona.
With supporters gathered along the course, Erika Kirk Waves while a motorcycle brings her husband’s body, Charlie Kirk, to the Hansen mortuary chapel in Phoenix on September 11, 2025. (Diannie Chavez / The Republic / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
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Throughout the episode of the podcast, Turek described Kirk as a intrepid leader and tirelessly centered on Christ.
He underlined the humility, discipline and dedication of Kirk to the family, pushing criticism which, according to him, “twisted” some of Kirk’s most controversial remarks.
Turek added, in one of his last texts the day before his death, Kirk sent him the verse of the Bible 1 Corinthians 16: 9: “A large door for effective work has opened up to me, and there are many adversaries.”
