Tim Jirus, a U.S. Navy commander, was working on the fourth floor of Building 197 when he heard two or three shots. It was distant, and he couldn’t tell if it was real.  Suddenly, people ran through the cubicles, shouting, “Get out!” The fire alarm went off. Jirus said he remained calm and joined colleagues who were filing out of the building. Outside, he saw a co-worker being loaded into a police car. He was told by colleagues that the man had been shot. Then he heard more shots.  Jirus thought he would be safe in an alley next to his building, where he hid and talked with a civilian about what was unfolding. Then came the sound of two more gunshots — very loud and echoing through the alley. Jirus looked toward the direction of the sound, then looked down: The other man had fallen to the ground, shot in the head, and apparently dead.  Jirus said he didn’t know whether the shooter was on the roof or if he could find an open door. He ran, seeing security officers arrive at the end of the alley and shelter behind police cars. He was terrified.  “I was running for my life,” said Jirus, 48, who lives in the Dupont Circle area.  He sprinted behind a maintenance building and quickly scaled a tall black metal fence, avoiding the spikes at the top. He kept going.  “I was just lucky,” he said. “There were two shots. He got that guy. He didn’t get me.”  Patricia Ward, a Navy logistics management specialist, said that she was at an ATM machine in the first floor atrium of Building 197, home to the Naval Sea Systems Command, when she heard loud, short explosions coming from a few floors above the open lobby. She and her two companions, who were on their way to breakfast, exchanged glances.  One of Ward’s friends started to ask: “Was that a gunshot?” But she was interrupted by the sounds of “BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM,” Ward said.  “We knew it then,” Ward said. “We just started running.”  A security guard on the sidewalk, her gun drawn, told them to keep running. Five blocks away, Ward waited in the drizzle for news of her co-workers. She called her manager, who told her to make her way home to Woodbridge, even though her purse, phone and other belongings were still at her desk.  The sound of gunfire was a foreign sound on a Monday morning. One Navy Yard employee said it sounded like “a guy dropping a wooden pallet.” Another described it as “someone dropping an old metal desk.”  Then came the fire alarms. The panic. The evacuation or sheltering in place. Warning e-mails. Helicopters overhead. Police everywhere. Sirens and lights flashing.
Navy officer who escaped says              a civilian worker he was talking to  was fatally shot right next to him.