KEY POINTS:
Until now, they were the two unknown victims of shotgun-wielding killer Graeme Burton. Now their stories can be revealed.
One year ago today, Jeremy Simpson and Karl Holmes were shot after finding the fugitive leaning over the body of slain father-of-two Karl Kuchenbecker in hills north of Wellington.
"I saw this big guy leaning over a quadbike and saw there was a gun strapped across his back," Simpson said.
"My immediate thought was that he was shooting rabbits ... but he stood up and pretty much instantly I recognised who he was.
"We just locked eyes for a second or so - nothing was said, nothing was gestured. I just knew I was in big trouble."
Holmes and Simpson were among five people to cross Burton's path on a day of mayhem and bloodshed above Wainuiomata.
The 35-year-old was armed with a sawn-off pump-action shotgun, a revolver and two knives.
He had been on the run from the police for four days after allegedly beating a man in the city centre.
In April last year, Burton was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 26 years for murdering quadbiker Kuchenbecker and for the attempted murder of Holmes and Simpson.
The other survivors of his rampage were Nick Rea and his 18-year-old daughter Kate who, like Holmes and Simpson, were out mountain biking.
Holmes, 34, and Simpson, 35, came across Burton shortly before 5pm while coming towards the end of a training run.
The momentum of their descent carried them past Burton, who shot both from behind.
Holmes remembered seeing Burton fire at Simpson.
"It made a pop, not like a shotgun, but like he'd shot him with a slug gun. Then I saw his [Simpson's] arm explode."
Simpson thought his arm had been blown off.
"There was no feeling. It was completely numb. I remember trying to lift my arm up to grab my handlebars - it moved from the shoulder to the elbow, but from the elbow joint down it was just dangling."
Holmes heard Burton cock the gun again, and another "pop" but didn't realise how badly he had been shot.
At the next corner Holmes passed Simpson, who had fallen off his bike "bleeding everywhere", and was screaming: "It's Burton, it's Burton. We've got to get out".
Holmes dumped his bike and ran back to his friend. Terrified, they stumbled on before stopping further down the track to find something to use as a tourniquet.
"I ripped my backpack off and tipped everything out," Holmes said.
"That's when I realised my arm must have been injured because it was useless. I got an inner tube out, but there was no way I could tie it round his arm, so I tried pulling my drinking tube out of my pack, and that wouldn't come out, so we just had to keep going."
Only then did Holmes feel able to stop long enough to get his cellphone out to call police.
Simpson remembered thoughts of dying - either from loss of blood or because Burton would catch them.
"I thought, if he comes around the corner chasing us, especially me - because he would have caught me easily - then he would kill me. No doubt about it."
Determined Simpson wasn't going to die, Holmes pushed him all the way. Exhausted, the pair reached the top of another hill, where Holmes took off his top and wrapped it around Simpson's wounds using his right hand and teeth.
Still on the phone to police, Holmes noticed Burton cycling towards them on Rea's bike - with the gun over his shoulders.
"I hauled Jeremy up again and headed down the track. There wasn't anywhere to go really, so we just crashed through some gorse and down a bank."
They holed up till they heard the bike go past, turning off the phone in case it alerted him to their whereabouts.
"It was probably the most scary thing that's ever happened to me in my life," Simpson said.
The next shots they heard were from the police, wounding Burton.
With the phone back on, Holmes was told by police communications staff it was safe to come out.
"I said that's fine, but we're not coming out of here till we see someone in a blue uniform."
They were choppered to Wellington Hospital where doctors considered amputating Simpson's damaged left arm, before inserting bars and rods.
He's had four more operations and still suffers numbness and muscle and tendon problems.
Holmes was shot in the left triceps and had a cut wrist. His wounds were cleaned and stitched before he was discharged.
Two days later as Holmes, the owner of a mechanic's business, tried to return to work, his left hand swelled to the size of a beachball, from a shotgun pellet still embedded in it.
The following day in hospital, a massive infection was found in his arm. Pumped full of drugs, he underwent a three-hour operation, the first of two he needed to repair the injuries.
He was off work for five months.
Holmes said his family - wife Hayley and children Sam, 13, and Grace, 8 - had coped with the aftermath of that shocking day as best they could.
"I don't want to make light of it, but it still seems really surreal. It really was just the most bizarre day I've ever had in my life."
Holmes and Simpson, a commercial property valuer who has a 12-year-old stepdaughter with partner Lisa, are both from Lower Hutt.
Neither wanted to waste their thoughts on Burton.
Simpson said he'd rather remember the bravery and selflessness of his friend. "I wouldn't say he was calm, but he was fantastic. At the end of the day he potentially saved my life."
