Charlie Kirk was being asked a question about mass shootings when he was shot in the neck in Utah.

On Wednesday, the rightwing activist, staunch ally of Donald Trump and executive director of Turning Point USA, the leading conservative youth organization, was speaking at a campus event at Utah Valley University in Orem, near Salt Lake City, when he was shot.

Videos posted online showed the 31-year-old sitting underneath a tent in a campus courtyard and a single shot ringing out when he was struck in the neck.

A reporter for the Salt Lake City-based Deseret News media outlet, Emma Pitts, was at the event with her colleague Eva Terry and described to the Guardian in a telephone interview on Wednesday afternoon the scene on the campus as Kirk arrived for the event.

“Charlie showed up, [and] I feel like the crowd was generally super positive, very happy with him coming to Utah. We interviewed a lot of people beforehand, they were just so eager to be interviewed,” Pitt said.

Echoing Pitts, Terry said: “There was a lot of the undergraduates in there who were just excited about that.”

According to eyewitnesses, Kirk was shot during his second question at the event.

Pitts said: “He was on the second question and it was regarding mass shootings and the person he was debating had asked about if he knew how many mass shootings had involved a transgender shooter, to which Kirk responded. Then he asked how many mass shootings there had been in total in the last couple of years, I believe.

“And then before he could even answer, we heard a gunshot and we just saw Charlie Kirk’s neck turn to the side and it appeared that he had been shot in the neck. There was blood, immediately a lot of blood,” Pitts added.

Videos circulating on social media shows an attender asking Kirk: “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” In response, Kirk says, “Too many,” as the crowd clapped.

In a follow-up question, the person asks: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

Kirk replies: “Counting or not counting gang violence?” Seconds later, Kirk could be seen struck in the neck as he falls back in his chair.

“After the shots were fired, everyone immediately took to the ground. Me and Eva just hugged each other as tight as we could as we were just trying to stay hidden. I don’t know how quickly it was, probably within a minute, everyone started running away … Since then the university has been completely evacuated,” said Pitts.

Terry described the direction of the shot, saying: “It looks like it came from the middle to the right side of the audience.”

“We hope Charlie Kirk is OK and that people in the event are OK because it was really scary for pretty much everyone there,” Terry added.