12:24 p.m. update:

After the defense finished cross-examining James Holmes’ ex-girlfriend Gargi Datta, survivors of the July 20, 2012, shooting at the Aurora Century 16 theater were called to speak about their experiences at the screening of “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Yousef Gharbi, who was 16 at the time of the shooting, testified to hearing “the popping sound” of a canister going off at the start of the attack and that, given the number of other teens from his high school, he “thought it was someone doing something immature” at first before noticing an orange flare.

Gharbi suffered a gunshot wound to the head and still has a bullet lodged there, and the court reviewed images of Gharbi’s various other entry and exit wounds from buckshot and pellets, some of which were lodged in his arm and throat. The damage to his frontal lobe resulted in Gharbi learning disabilities.

Jasmine Kennedy, who was 19 at the time and attended the movie that night with co-workers from the Red Robin restaurant, took the stand and emotionally recounted how she felt that the beginning of the attack “was somebody playing a joke on us.”

Kennedy testified that one of her friends tried to get her to run and leave after the shooting began but “felt a burning sensation” in her leg and collapsed to the floor before being carried out later by emergency responders. She was later taken to Children’s Hospital and subsequently had multiple surgeries for skin and bone grafts for injuries to her leg.

Farrah Soudani, who was with the Red Robin group and friends with the late Alex Sullivan, testified about bending down to push her intestines and other organs back into her abdomen after being shot that night.

Soudani recalled the lights coming on in the auditorium and Mike White, Sr. — her boyfriend’s father — laying over her for protection while Michelle Baker — White, Sr.’s girlfriend — wiping her brow and slapping her cheeks to keep Soudani conscious until police and emergency responders arrived.

“All I wanted to do was close my eyes,” Soudani said, later noting the difficulty responders had in putting her on a backboard to remove her from the auditorium after her extensive injuries.

The court broke just before 12:30 p.m. for an hour-long break for lunch.

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CENTENNIAL | The ex-girlfriend of Aurora theater shooter James Holmes said that his talks about killing people were simply jokes at first, but later went so far as to confront him with another friend about the troubling remarks.

Gargi Datta, who dated Holmes while the pair were graduate students at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, was the focus of Thursday’s morning proceedings on Day 30 of Holmes’ trial.

As Datta testified, Holmes swiveled in his chair. Datta didn’t appear to look at Holmes at all during her testimony and regularly referred to him as “the defendant.”

Jurors were given the better part of an hour to review Google chat transcripts between Datta and Holmes, some of which included Holmes discussing the possibility of killing others. Datta testified Thursday that she thought he was just messing around.

Datta said as she grew more and more concerned about Holmes’ remarks, she talked to another friend about it and confronted him about it in late March 2013, asking if he had spoken with a therapist about it. She testified that Holmes assured her that he had.

Datta testified that about a week after the confrontation that she cut ties with Holmes, this after they had informally broken off their relationship but remained friendly.

Holmes also told Datta that some of his laboratory work in graduate school wasn’t going well and that his professors had urged him to interact more with other students.

“Science appears to have shifted from guys working alone in dark rooms to some huge interaction,” Holmes wrote to her.

He also told her that while Datta would find work easily because she had a master’s degree, “I, on the other hand, would be SOL” if he didn’t complete graduate school.

After the defense finished their cross-examination of Datta, the court heard from other survivors of the shooting spree at the theater.

Holmes is accused of killing 12 and wounding 70 others during the July 2012 shooting rampage. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity; prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.