Chargers rookie survived 2012 Colorado movie theater shooting

COSTA MESA, Calif. (KABC) -- Most rookies will say they're fortunate to be here, in Chargers camp. Zack Golditch will say he's fortunate to be alive.

"The workers that had been helping me had told me the bullet had grazed me. It was not a graze. It was in the front, and out in the back," said Golditch.

America knows it as the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting of 2012.

Golditch was headed into his senior year of high school. He was watching the midnight showing of Batman when gunfire erupted in the theater. "I didn't realize what had happened until I called 911," Golditch said. "The lady on dispatch said, 'Aurora theater shooting, we're on the way.'"

Golditch was shot in the neck, and a police officer rushed him to the hospital. One of his high school classmates was not so fortunate -- he was killed. "There was like a vigil the next day. They had A.J.'s name written out in candles on the track. I went there to pay my respect. That's when it hit me -- that could have been me," Golditch said.

Golditch missed two weeks of practice. Had the bullet been an inch the other way, he knows he wouldn't be here.

"Jawline is right, back of your skull is right there, the spine is going down the back, you got a lot going on in that area," the rookie from Colorado State said.

He added, "I don't take anything for granted, I try to focus on the little things. There's a lot of scar tissue that built up. But now, I have no limitations from it, it's a scar and a crazy story."

Golditch hopes to write another crazy story, by making the Chargers roster as a free-agent offensive lineman.