'GOOD FOR MY SOUL' Chilean student, gunshot victim returns to Destin area to find peace (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

In late 2008, Sebastian Arizaga traveled from Chile to work in a five-star hotel in New Orleans.

He ended up stuck in a McDonald’s in Destin.

Arizaga and a group of South American students joined a work abroad program. He met the others on the plane on their way to New Orleans on Dec. 17, 2008.

But the hotel said the job wasn’t there, and the group relocated to Destin, a place he had never heard of. They lived together on Long Lake Drive, close to the McDonald’s on U.S. Highway 98 where they worked.

“It was horrible,” Arizaga said Thursday through a translator at El Paso restaurant in Mary Esther. “But we took it and we did it … it was better to do that than to go back to Chile defeated.”

While the job wasn’t what he had hoped for, he got to know the other students while dealing with the language barrier. He became good friends with Racine Balbontin, who he described as happy, with a zest for life.

He also fell in love with Destin’s white sand beaches.

“We went crazy when we saw it,” Arizaga recalled.

On the night of Feb. 25, 2009, about two months into his intended three-month stay, the group was invited to dinner by a friend. They were tired after a long day of work, but decided to go to the friend’s town home on Scenic Gulf Drive in Miramar Beach.

Arizaga and his housemates were preparing to leave about 1:45 a.m. when a loud explosion ripped through a window.

The attack

Arizaga, who was 27 at the time, thought a stray bullet had hit the house. Before he could process what was happening — about 4 seconds elapsed — 13 more shots rang out. No one knew what was happening.

“I watched Racine die next to me, and Nicolas in front of us,” he said. “Everybody was screaming.”

He had his back to the window where the bullets came through. During the gunfire, he raised his arms in shock. One bullet passed through his left shoulder and into his left hand, between his index finger and thumb.

“I felt like half my body went to sleep, numb,” Arizaga said. “My hand was hot.”

Patrol cars, ambulances and helicopters descended. Arizaga bled a lot but remained conscious as he was flown to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola.

Some of his first thoughts turned to Balbontin, who was 22. Her death hurt the most.

“During our stay we became very good friends. She was like my family,” he said. “It was very hard.”

Nicolas Pablo Corp, 23, also died. Francisco Cofre, who was 25, and David Alonzo Bilbao, who was 21, were wounded.

Cofre, who was shot in the face, lost sight in one eye, Arizaga said.

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A COLLECTION OF COVERAGE

To read the latest from the legal proceedings, click here.

To read a victim's account of the shooting, click here.

To see a video of a victim describing the attack, click here.

To read about the victims' recovery, click here.

During a past pre-trial hearing, the Chilean consul attended.

To read about how the community rallied behind the survivors, click here.

To see a photo gallery from the shooting scene.

To read a story about a fish that survived six months in Baker's shuttered home, click here.

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None of the students knew 60-year-old Dannie Baker, who lived in the same town home complex. Baker walked across the parking lot and opened fire into the window that night, according to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office. He returned to his home, where he surrendered to lawmen.

Baker, who was charged with two counts premeditated first-degree murder and three counts attempted first-degree murder, was ruled incompetent to stand trial and sent to Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee. He was discharged later and is being held at the Walton County Jail, awaiting another psychological evaluation.

Closing the circle

While Arizaga recovered at Sacred Heart, he received about 700 e-mails asking how he was doing. Doctors placed metal rods in his hand, which he had to carefully lay on a pillow while sleeping.

“That was terrible,” he said.

After being discharged, he stayed at his aunt’s house in Maryland while going through physical therapy. He finally returned to Chile in July 2009, four months after he had originally planned.

Going home didn’t make the pain subside. He plunged into depression.

“With my family, it was terrible. It was horrible, Arizaga said. “When I went back to Chile it was very stressful.”

But after more than a year of reflection, he realized he came out a stronger man.

“It’s something that makes you value things like family and friends, and that life can be taken away in a moment, in a second,” he said.

Arizaga holds no feelings of revenge toward Baker. He said the shooter was mentally ill, and he and his friends happened to be at the wrong place.

“I don’t have any anger toward him because he is a sick person,” Arizaga said. “This has no logic, so this is why I can’t feel hate.”

Now, he just wants to try to be happy. He spends time with Cofre, who also lives in northern Chile, and stays in touch with the others who shared the ordeal.

Arizaga’s college education was put on hold. But now he is one semester away from finishing his degree in architectural drawing at DUOC Universidad Catolica in Valparaiso, Chile — sister city to Valparaiso in Okaloosa County.

After school, he plans to find a wife and start a family.

Arizaga returned to Destin last week.

He found peace on the white sand once again and took hundreds of photographs. He said the trip has “closed the process.”

“It’s been very good for my soul, to come back to a place where I was happy, but left with violence,” Arizaga said. “I want to remember the good part of the story.”