ORLANDO, Fla. — Spectrum News 13 photojournalist Jesse Walden has been talking to his colleagues, after being critically injured in a pair of shootings that took the lives of reporter Dylan Lyons and a 9-year-old girl.

As Walden recovers in the hospital, he remembers reporter Lyons as a friend first, and a coworker second.

What You Need To Know

“You’re losing a friend,” he said from his hospital bed. “You’re not losing an acquaintance or just coworker — it’s someone that made working fun.”

Lyons and Walden started at Spectrum News 13 around the same time in 2022 and were paired on the night shift together.

“Dylan was a very, very wholesome person,” Walden said. “He had a great sense of humor, too.”

Walden wanted to share his thoughts on Lyons and wanted to be interviewed from his hospital room. He described his friend as a go-getter who was happy to be doing what he loved.

“He had a very strong sense of justice,” Walden said. “He would really want everyone to follow the rules when it came to people of power.”

Walden has a long road ahead as he works to process the unimaginable, but is hoping to be out of the hospital in the next day or two.

He said the support he’s received from loved ones, old coworkers and even strangers has been amazing.

“Every step of the way, I’ve been blessed,” he said. “People care.”