Speaking of his love for the 24-year-old journalist, News Anchor Chris Hurst described his girlfriend as ‘our bright, shining light and it was cruelly extinguished by yet another crazy person with a gun.’
The 28-year-old, who also worked for WDBJ, where Alison worked, added that their hectic work schedules meant they had to grab time together when they could, saying:
‘Our schedule was, I anchor the six o’clock and 11 o’clock news, I would come home around midnight, wait for her to get up - she needed to be at work at 3.30am.’
‘This morning she had to get up a little extra early to go to Smith Mountain Lake. I made her breakfast, I made her lunch - I sent her on her way.’
Tragically, Chris added how his girlfriend texted him to say she had got to work safely, and the last thing she said to him was ‘Good night, sweet boy.’
‘The next thing I wake up to phone calls from the station a little after 7 o’clock, telling me there had been a shooting that had happened live on television and that I needed to come to the station.’
Chris explained how the events seemed even more surreal due to the nature of his job, where he was usually reporting on incidents rather than being wrapped up in them.
‘I thought that it was important for me as a member of this community and a leader of this station and someone who loved Alison infinitely to come out and share with you her story and her life - one of great promise and exuberance and joy that now will not be able to continue.
'But the life that she led and the life that she shared with me was bright, and we will not do anything to try to extinguish that light that she had.'
Alison, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, were killed w