Oregon Shooting Victim Was From Orange County

One of the victims of the shooting on an Oregon college campus was a former resident of Orange County who ran toward the gunfire as the massacre got under way.

Kim Saltmarsh Dietz was among the nine people shot and killed by Chris Harper Mercer at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. She was 59.

Mercer later shot and killed himself as authorities arrived on the scene.

Dietz, then known as Saltmarsh, graduated from Mission Viejo High in 1974 and moved from south Orange County to Oregon in 2008 with her husband.

Dietz attended classes at Umpqua, as did her daughter, freshman Shannon, who was not injured in the mass killing that refocused political crosshairs on gun laws.

In addition to Shannon, Dietz is survived by her husband Eric, the manager of the Pyranees Vineyard & Cellars. Kim Dietz tended to the landscaping on the property. Robert Stryk, owner of the vineyard in Myrtle Creek, Ore., told the Associated Press the Dietzes met while in Southern California and were divorced, but “were still close friends.”

“That’s the real tragedy here, is that this is a woman who was just trying to better herself” by taking classes at Umpqua, Stryk said. “She was a very energetic, very kind, kind soul. Kim was an exceptional woman.”

Dietz’s stepmother, Trudy Saltmarsh, told the Orange County Register the couple moved from San Clemente.

At the time of the shooting, Kim Dietz was in a class with nursing student Sharon Kirkham when they heard what they thought were firecrackers in the classroom next door. Kirkham described the shooting to ABC News, saying there was rapid fire. Dietz headed toward the noise to investigate, which didn’t surprise Stryk, who said Dietz’s experience as a former park ranger would have led her to take a look; Saltmarsh said Dietz worked in animal care while in Orange County.

“Kim comes back into the room and slumps over and I realize she’s shot,” Kirkham said. “I was begging her to just breathe.”

She said she performed CPR on Dietz, who died in Kirkham’s arms. Army veteran Chris Mintz, who has been hailed as a hero in the tragedy, entered the room and told people to take cover and turn out the lights. Then, the gunman entered the room and shot Mintz several times.

Kirkham said she tended to a woman who suffered a gunshot wound to the leg and then to Mintz.

In addition to being a lover of gardening, animals and the outdoors, a blog called wildhunt.org, referred to Dietz as “a local Pagan woman” who was “closely connected to Covenant of the Goddess, whose members have been reaching out across various platforms to offer support.” According to wildhunt.org, it reports on events “of interest to or happening within the modern Pagan, Polytheist and Heathen communities.”

A GoFundMe page, the Kim Dietz Memorial Fund, has been set up to assist in covering the cost of a funeral, memorial and related expenses.

On that site, Umpqua student Kamie Stubblefield wrote: ”She was an amazing lady I had more than one class with her. She was always positive.”

-Martin Henderson; Kim Saltmarsh Dietz via Facebook