With reporting from Jill Stewart

You're taking care of your 10-month-old and 2-year-old at home when your friends reach out to just let you know that your husband ” … is in a gun battle!”

Not only that, but the gun battle is on live TV.

Such was the day of Fox News Channel and Fox 11 News entertainment reporter Courtney Friel, who was getting ready for her own turn before the cameras when she found out that hubby Carter Evans was dodging bullets:

Evans happened to be in Big Bear doing what could be considered a routine report on the Christopher Dorner manhunt for CBS Los Angeles / KCAL when he came upon a deadly confrontation between a suspect and San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputies.

One officer lost his life.

Friel told the Weekly she was at home:

I was just putting our little kids down for a nap because I had to get into work myself, you know, hop in the shower and get ready for work before our babysitter gets there. Then I heard from our friends: “Carter is in a gun battle!” And I was like, “What!?

I saw that he was on TV and I was like – it was so incredible! He did call me after the gun battle, but I think his cell phone was dying.

The Fox reporter did get to talk to him for a while but was left alone with her thoughts after that, though she expresses much confidence in because of Evans' 17 years in the business.

I didn't get a chance to ask him, you know, “Were you scared?” because he had to go, so I am really in the dark … I was definitely frozen in my kitchen … My heart was racing and I remember thinking, “I have a 2 year old and 10 month old.” And I was thinking, “Nothing bad can happen; our kids are still so little.”

… It was scary for awhile because I wasn't hearing back from him and finally I heard one of the anchors say on the air, “Carter is okay.”

Whew.

Credit: courtneyfriel.com

Credit: courtneyfriel.com

And now? Friel has received thousands of emails and texts, which have hit her smartphone today “at a constant pace,” she says.

Evans will be on the air with CNN's Soledad O'Brien tomorrow morning to talk about his day at work.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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