BUTLER COUNTY, Pa.—The world knows how her husband died. Now Helen Comperatore is on a mission to make sure everyone knows that his final act of selfless bravery, now immortalized, reflected the way he lived.

Quiet heroism, compassion, and “giving his all” defined Corey Comperatore, his wife said, long before he became famous for protecting her and their two daughters from gunfire at a rally for President Donald Trump in Butler Township, Pennsylvania, in 2024.

Ahead of the anniversary of the shooting that Trump and two other wounded people miraculously survived, Helen Comperatore and others talked to The Epoch Times about the impact of her husband’s death and efforts to honor his life.

The former fire chief’s widow also described a fateful choice that he made on July 13, 2024—a date now etched in U.S. history.

Hours before the shots rang out at the Butler Farm Show grounds, she recalled, “Some guy just randomly came up to me and said, ‘Would you guys like to go sit in VIP seating?’”

Her husband responded: “Absolutely. Let’s go.”

As a result, “We were the first people in the bleachers,” Helen Comperatore said.

“We had first pick of those seats—and that’s where Corey chose to sit.”

That location unwittingly put the Comperatores between rooftop gunman Thomas Crooks, 20, and Trump, his intended target.

Crooks’s bullets “went right directly past us,” Helen Comperatore said. “One went right past my cheek. Another one went right over my head.”

And one struck her 50-year-old husband—the lone fatality among a crowd of many thousands.

“It was the saddest, most traumatic day of my life,” Helen Comperatore, 51, said, mourning the loss of her high school sweetheart, to whom she had been married for nearly 29 years.

Yet she believes that her husband’s death—at his first Trump rally—was part of “God’s plan.”

“The way things went down that day ... God knew that this was going to happen, and it was the way it was supposed to be,” she said, adding that she and her husband shared a strong Christian faith.

The two injured men, the Comperatore family, and other rally attendees bonded over their shared trauma. “We go out to dinner together. We’re very close. We pray together. We all pray for Corey all the time. ... We’ve just become a family,” Helen Comperatore said.

Days after the shooting, Trump, still wearing a bandage over the wound to his right ear, paid tribute to Corey Comperatore at the Republican National Convention. Trump commended him for acting “as a human shield” to protect his loved ones.

As Trump spoke, Corey Comperatore’s firefighter turnout gear was displayed onstage; Trump walked over and kissed his fire helmet. That hit home for the firefighter’s family in an unexpected way.

That’s why seeing her husband’s firefighting gear onstage with Trump at the convention made the family react, she said. “We were all like: Here’s his moment—he’s up on stage,” she said.

Although steeped in unrelenting grief, the Comperatores said they take heart knowing that the death of their hero touched people locally, nationally, and even internationally.

“This community, this entire world, has been amazing,” Helen Comperatore said. “I have heard from people all over the world.”

“The last time a lot of people saw Corey, they saw him in a very tragic way—and I don’t want people to remember him like that,” Helen Comperatore said. “I want people to celebrate Corey and remember him for the man that he was, and Corey was a good man.”

Besides working as an engineer at a plastics company and serving 10 years in the Army Reserves, he volunteered 34 years as a firefighter in Butler County’s Buffalo Township, ascending to chief in the early 2000s.

Filling those roles while also being a father and husband, “he had it all, representing who we are” as a community, Butler County Commission Chair Leslie Osche told The Epoch Times. “So I think people here remember him as much for that as they do for what happened.”

Osche was present at the shooting and, like many others, is still processing it in her mind, she said.

She didn’t know Corey Comperatore before he died. But Osche said that now, “I think everyone feels like they knew him forever,” because of what they have learned about him as a person.

She recounted a story that illustrates both traits. Several years ago, on a 100-degree summer day, her husband came to the aid of a neighbor. The man had suffered an apparent medical emergency and fallen off his tractor while lawn-mowing.

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“He had already passed, I think, but Corey was not having it. ... He was giving him everything he had,” insistently performing CPR compressions, she said.

When medics arrived, they lacked a razor to shave the man’s chest hair—an essential step before attaching a heart-shocking device’s electrode pads.

In a desperate attempt to save his neighbor’s life, “Corey just started ripping this man’s hair out, and he was sweaty and wet,” she said. Despite her husband’s valiant efforts, their neighbor didn’t survive, she said.

Her husband was dejected. “I just remember him coming home afterward and him just breaking down. ... He just gave it everything.

“He was just exhausted.”

Telling that story made Helen Comperatore struggle to hold back tears. It is so emblematic of who her husband was, she said. He gave his all to that neighbor, to his family, and to everything he did.

While planning events in her husband’s honor, she has caught herself re-doing tasks so they would meet his high standards; she jokingly called him “Mr. Perfection.”

Asked how he might react if he could see people gathering to remember him, she replied: “I think my husband would say, ‘You’re unbelievable. You didn’t need to do this for me, but I am absolutely over the moon with what you did. ... I wish I could be a part of it with everybody and celebrate.'”

She said, “I just want a day where people can come out and have a good time” while unifying around her husband’s legacy.

Longo told The Epoch Times that celebrating Comperatore’s life is essential to the community’s ability to heal, and that he feels honored to be part of it. Although he has been in touch with Trump’s team, he said he was unable to say what the president is planning to do on or near the anniversary.

The White House did not respond to inquiries about any such plans.

“I’m not privy to the president’s advance schedule, but I can tell you one thing that I know for sure, with utmost certainty: President Trump has not forgotten Butler. President Trump has not forgotten the Comperatore family,” Longo said. “He and his team have been more than, you know, willing and definitely committed to being communicative with the family and to honoring them consistently.”

Because Comperatore supported Trump, some people who dislike the Republican president have made hateful comments about Comperatore and his loved ones, organizer Scott Docherty told The Epoch Times.

Helen Comperatore said positive responses have far outweighed the bad.  She said she “feels sorry” for those who have been unkind.

“I’d never want anybody to live through what I have gone through, or have their children see their father die in front of them like that, because it’s traumatic and it ruins your entire life,” she said. “You know, I’ll never forget it until the day I die, nor will my children. No matter how much therapy you receive, you don’t forget it.”