CLEVELAND — A moment that captured the nation's attention, an assignation attempt on former president Donald Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which is only about an hour and some change away from Youngstown, Ohio.

Several Ohioans crossed the border to attend the Pennsylvania rally, including Mahoning County Commissioner candidate Geno DiFabio.

“We are standing there and I heard distinct gun shots after the first two I see him [Donald Trump] go down,” DiFabio said. “I think they killed him. Then there was I think there were eight shots all together and there was nothing indistinguishable from the other ones. I don’t know when he started shooting, when the secret service shot back, but it sounded like one round of fire, one round of shots going back and forth.”

This wasn’t DiFabio’s first time at a Trump rally. In fact, he was actually invited on stage by the former president during a separate rally, but he said being there during the attempted assassination is now a memory he will never forget.

“Then he put his fist up, and I’m telling you, everyone was thankful he was alive and he was showing his fist like, ‘They are not going to get me,’ it was just amazing.”

He described the moments following the shooting as ‘surreal.’

“They just tried to kill him and it’s ok because he is ok, and nobody is running and nobody is panicking but there was no announcement from the stage saying, ‘The event has been cancelled, it’s over,’ it was nothing like that,” he recalled. “Everyone just stood there, and they started getting mad and some people went over to where the news was and started yelling at the cameramen.”

He said despite this recent experience, he would have no problem attending Trump rallies in the future.

“I was excited to go there. It was a tragedy,” he said. “Am I glad I was there to see that history being made? Not under those circumstances, but overall, I’m glad I made the decision to go."