Jacob Blake speaks out a year later. 'I have not survived until something has changed'

During the Fourth of July weekend, Jacob Blake says he called 911 over what he later realized was an anxiety attack.

The fireworks triggered what he felt had been a crescendo of pain over a difficult and turbulent year, particularly when it came to gun violence. Blake was in the Chicago area that weekend with family.

He says the anxious episode "was the most painful experience" since he was shot seven times in his side on August 23, 2020 by Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey after he and two other officers responded to a call for a domestic incident.

A year later, Blake tells CNN that he didn't want to call 911 during the holiday, but he had no other option.

"Before we even got to the 4th of July, the weekend was bloody already, Blake says. "I was watching all of my people dying."

"I'm hearing these booms [fireworks] and it's not scaring me because I got shot, it's scaring me because all of those people have gotten shot so every time a boom went off, I'm kind of imagining people dying."