I can't believe that it has been ten years.

[Norm357]

Mark Barton, I hope that you are burning wherever you are.

ATLANTA -- It was the height of the dot-com boom, and the money was flowing, and the stock market was soaring, and Atlanta was drawing young professionals on the make from all over the country.

And then one afternoon, that joy ride crashed.

A mad man starting shooting and killing in Atlanta's financial district.

That was ten years ago -- the Buckhead Massacre.

We tracked down two people whose lives intersected that day in a way that each will never forget.


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A father helps his 5-year-old son with his golf swing -- a set piece of Americana if ever there was one. Yet there is something especially poignant about this scene. By all accounts it should never have happened.

Because of what happened ten years ago.


The call that came in to Atlanta 911 was brief, chilling:

"Atlanta police operator."


"There's a shooting at 3500 Piedmont Road on the third floor. Someone has been shot. He says other people are dead. I have no idea what else is going on."


On July 29, 1999, after killing his wife and two children, Mark Barton drove to the 3500 block of Piedmont Road and calmly walked into one of the buildings.


He went to two offices where he'd been a day trader of stocks. He opened fire. He shot and killed four people in one office and five in the other. He wounded another dozen. Then he slipped away, and killed himself.

"I think it's safe to say," Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell announced to reporters that day in the hours during the manhunt for Barton, "that every law enforcement agent and officer in the metro area is now looking for Mr. Barton. We must bring him to justice quickly."

One of those wounded was Brent Doonan, 25, office manager of All Tech Investments.

"He [Barton] had a smile on his face," recalled Doonan, "when he was saying, 'come here, come here. You've got to see this'. And being the jokester that he was, I thought he had, you know, some funny joke to see."

Barton pulled two pistols from his waistband and fired at Doonan -- hitting him four times and grazing him once.

"I was too young to die," Doonan said. "Twenty-five years old. I'm laying there. I've got this successful business. And, I wasn't ready to go."

Somehow Doonan was able to pull himself up, race down the hall and into an elevator -- just steps in front of a pursuing Barton.

"About the time the elevator door is closing," Doonan recounted, "he was coming through the service door. And he was about three feet from me when the doors finally closed."

The elevator took Doonan upstairs to safety. But because of the danger and confusion, he waited nearly an hour for help to arrive.

"We heard the calls coming in," recalled Dr. John Harvey, "about the fairly unusual incident down near Peachtree and Piedmont at the financial district. And it just didn't sound right."

John Harvey was a trauma surgeon. He just happened to be in the area, scouting office space, when Barton opened fire. Harvey rushed to the scene to see if he could help. Police led him to the room where Brent Doonan, seriously wounded, was hanging on to life.

"I was actually concerned when we first met as to whether we would be able to achieve survival," said Harvey. "I think I told him, 'Keep your eyes open and you live; if you close your eyes you're not going to make it.'"

Brent Doonan kept his eyes open.

Ten years later, a five year old boy runs to greet his father. His father, Brent Doonan.


His dad's heart leaps at the sight of him.


Ten years later, Brent Doonan is fully alive, playing with his young son, and working with his own father, Kenny Doonan, at the business Brent's grandfather started -- one of the most successful truck dealerships in the country, in Wichita, Kansas.


In many ways, it's a downshift from Atlanta.

"A downshifting?" laughed Brent. "I'd say we're going into neutral from Atlanta. So we've definitely had to slow down quite a bit. But do I miss Atlanta? Yes. But I love it here as well."

Brent came home to Kansas a year and a half after the Buckhead shooting. That's where he is spending the rest of his life. With the family business, his father, his wife Sarah and his son Jaxson.

"Every year, you know, it starts coming around to July and you start thinking about it," Doonan said. "And I try to do something -- you know try to at least remember it on the day."

Anyone looking for the dark corner of Brent Doonan's psyche, where the all the traumatic memories and emotions are stored, will not find it.

He dealt with the horror of that day long ago, and has moved on.

Brent Doonan will neither ignore the tenth anniversary of the Buckhead shootings nor do anything special for it.

He will acknowledge it, while being with the people he loves, and will do what he has done since he survived that day: get on with his life.

"I think, you know, I probably shouldn't have been here" reflected Doonan, "and I better enjoy you know every day for what it is."

Brent has remained close to the man who saved his life. He and John Harvey fish and hunt together, and speak regularly on the phone.

Dr. Harvey will make no special note of this July.

"I don't really mark the anniversaries," Harvey said. "But I often reflect on the events. And hopefully the lessons that we've learned from those events."

Ten years after the worst day of his life, Brent Doonan embraces the straightforward, honest way of life he finds in Wichita. He wants to become the third generation to run Doonan Truck. And dreams that his son Jaxson will be the fourth. But first he has to work on his golf swing.

Story from 11alive.com