1 October

*directly from my FB page on 10/3/2017 to give you the background (that I can remember) of everything to come after the Vegas mass shooting*

Thank you to everyone who has reached out. We made it out of the bullet filled venue and home to Oceanside safely. I can’t reply to everyone because I still have no phone since I didn’t get to gamble on Sunday night (10/1/17) in Vegas and win enough money to happily retire. I am so happy to be alive today, and everyday. I didn’t always appreciate everyday of life that I was given to live. Few of you know my struggles that I’ve dealt with my whole life, and the inner battles that took the spotlight the past few years that I continue to deal with, work on, and learn from with the help of loved ones. I want to say after the massacre at Route 91 that I hug those I love much harder or appreciate every good, bad, and in between moment of life — but I can’t. The upside to my mental health struggles is that I’ve learned to do that everyday. I can’t tell you all individually everything that happened in Vegas because it hurts, I cry, I go numb, images that will scar my memories for the rest of my life pop into my head, and it just plain and simple sucks…so I will share it here. I will do my best to recount every single thing that I felt, and every second that I can remember, but it’s so hard to remember it all because it seems like a blur, so please try to understand that I am doing my best. This isn’t a story of a couple who dragged ten people to safety, it’s just my facts and might not be entertaining to you. I’m not trying to entertain you, anyways. It’s not short at all (please scroll to end for proof) and we don’t do backflips, we just simply survive. I am also just throwing out the very proud fact that Chase and I sprinted about a mile in what was probably less than 6 minutes if we account for the time it took to get out of the venue once we all realized what was going on. My slow high school self would be so proud of that mile time. Anyways…here you go, world.

In March, Chase and I planned to spend our last vacation together in Vegas from September 28th-October 1st to celebrate our love of country music before he begins his time serving our country as a drill instructor. We had a great four day vacation leading up to the final night of Route 91. We (tequila happy Denae) made so many amazing friends at the festival. Snapchats, IGs, and phone numbers were swapped everyday. An hour before Jason Aldean, our biggest problem was what to have engraved on our free Budweiser leather koozies and what days I could meet up with our new friend to play with her four dogs. I posted on IG about three minutes before Jason Aldean began his set at 9:40pm while Chase and I enjoyed the last moments of being able to rest our legs in preparation for a long hour and a half of dancing to the music of one of our favorite artists.

There was an obnoxiously drunk individual who slowly made his way to his left to obstruct my view (story of the weekend) so that he could be closer to the group of girls next to us. I was uncomfortable and annoyed because my only good view of the stage all weekend was being obstructed by some tall dude in a cowboy hat that was no smoother than extra chunky peanut butter. I searched to our right to find shorter and less intoxicated people to stand behind. I planned to pull Chase and our belongings 10–15 feet to our right at the start of the next song. The sound of what we all thought were maybe ten pops of firecrackers went off. Tall intoxicated friend dropped to the floor to take cover, while all heads turned to see what it was, only to see nothing but smoke (which I now think might have been my imagination convincing myself it was fireworks). I’m sure the majority chalked it up to either some jerks trying to be “funny” or a shooting outside the strip, and we all continued to sing and dance. Not long after, an entire round went off and 10–15 feet to our right, an individual went down and I saw two yellow vests run to his aid. My focus shifted from the stage to what those yellow vests were running to. We heard someone say “my friend just got shot in the arm!” It was enough to kick our flight drive into gear. As we shoved our way through a confused and stagnant crowd, we yelled “someone has just been shot, get out of here! Run!” I remember a girl’s face looking confused then terrified as I pushed by her and she said to her friends “she just said someone has been shot. Oh my god.” There were others on the opposite end of our spectrum saying “guys, it’s nothing. Calm down. It isn’t real it’s part of the show. Stop freaking out.” The music stopped, the flood lights went on, and all I could hear was confused and worried voices and gunfire.

At some point we crouched down, backs open to the sky for bullets to rain down on us. Not everyone in the venue crouched down, so I was still wondering if I was overreacting. We got up and continued to push our way through a crowd that began to process that there may, in fact, be real danger. We gained what seemed to only be mere feet before the third magazine went off and we found ourselves laid out on the floor along with everyone else who finally began to understand this was not a joke. It seemed like pure silence except for the gunfire. It was a deafening silence of terror and uncertainty. We were all in such close proximity that I was laying on top of some girl, with my face on her butt, and no space to move elsewhere. I didn’t even care; there were bigger things to worry about than the placement of my face. Somehow I ended up finding my own little space on the blacktop and ended up on my back. As I laid on my back with Chase on top of me in an attempt to shield me from danger I saw nothing but the dark sky and the top corner of the stage’s big screen that only seconds ago had Jason Aldean’s face on it. I frantically grasped at Chase’s head to try to protect him with my child-like hands, repositioning my hands in every way possible to try to maximize coverage, and I remember being frustrated as I realized my hands are not capable of even shielding a small puppy. I could only think that this had to be a joke. We were all over reacting. This type of stuff doesn’t happen to me. This can’t happen to me. But then what is that noise? And the thought that many of us probably had: “is this really how I die?…I hope like hell that it doesn’t hurt that bad…”

Being a Marine, Chase’s instinct was to get up and find the son of a bitch with the gun. He tried to push away from me and get up and look back to assess the situation and I was SO SURE that he was getting ready to try to single handedly take this guy out. I shrieked “baby, don’t! Please don’t! Stay down with me!” I grabbed his head and tried to bring him back down but my hands slipped over the top of his head, knocking his hat off while he continued to try to take another look above all of us who were paralyzed on the floor from confusion and fear. On the brink of tears I shrieked again “no! Please don’t! Baby, just stay down!” And in a last ditch attempt I said what I knew would keep him on the floor: “baby, please don’t leave me here by myself…” It seemed that I fought him for a lifetime to keep him down, not knowing that staying down wouldn’t help anyone. I was so sure the shooter was in the venue not far from the corner of the venue that we were laid out on, but then someone said “it’s coming from above! RUN!”

Chase told me to get up and all my senses turned off. I would follow this man and his instructions until I couldn’t anymore. No thoughts. No sounds. No feelings. No awareness. I vaguely remember crawling over bodies. Were they hit? Were they paralyzed with fear? I’m never going to know, and I don’t want to. During the transition from our crawl to our sprint I saw a blurry, shaky, and slanted image of a shirtless man, like I was viewing the horrors in front of me through one of those homemade horror film video cameras. He was standing straight up, beer in hand, facing the stage and looking around at all of us scrambling and said “seriously, guys? There’s no danger, it’s fine!” It confused me. This all had to be fake if there were multiple men like him standing there.

Senses off, eyes on Chase. He pulled me through the crowd leaping over and around bodies and debris. I saw nothing but him and followed every jump and step. However, for a moment, I looked to my left as we ran by the lawn chair section and saw people STILL SITTING DOWN. “WHY ARE YOU NOT RUNNING?!” I thought to myself, unable to scream. The venue that was once packed like sardines seemed almost empty.

Senses off, eyes on Chase. At some point I tripped and my feet fumbled beneath me in every effort to keep from falling and being left as an easy target. It may have been at this point that my flailing hands were the reason Chase and I were no longer holding hands. I can’t remember why we lost physical contact, but I will NEVER forget the look on his face as he looked back to find me. It is the main reason I cry every five minutes. I can’t stop seeing the look of terror on his face when he halted mid stride to look back to figure out why my hand had left his. I kid you not, this scene in my head looks like a movie. Seemingly dull lights illuminated everything behind him, and everything looked like it had a purple filter over it except for his face that was clear as a sunny San Diego day. He was only a couple of feet ahead of me, but it looked like one of those scenes where the hero loses his grip and the victim falls to their death off a cliff, each person still reaching out for the other, and I was nearing the end of my fall. In reality, he really only stopped for probably a half second before I was able to reach his hand again.

When we got to the sidewalk right outside the venue I expected to be relieved, but I was even more scared and realized there could be more gunmen ready to take us all out with a machine gun at the exit that everyone was funneling out of. I was tired. I wanted to stop once we were out of the venue, but realized we had to keep running. Nowhere was safe anymore. It felt like Chase was pulling me through the air and my feet weren’t meeting the ground. I forcibly let go of his hand, slowed to a walk, and pleaded to stop and take a break behind the closest building. He said “we have to keep going, babe.” He grabbed my hand and we continued to run. We got around the corner and I had never been more relieved to see a cop car screeching to a stop and their flashing red and blue lights. “We are safe, thank the lord they’re here for us” I thought to myself. I wanted to run to them, but before I could even direct Chase’s attention to them, the two officers had jumped out of their car, one hand on their gun, the other on the door, and they took off in a heroic sprint towards the carnage that we were all fleeing from. In that moment, I could not understand why they were running away from us rather than to us. We were all still in danger. Help us.

Senses off, eyes on Chase. He let go of my hand around what must have been after a mile of running in order to call his grandparents to get them to take us to safety. The pain in my lungs, throat, and back returned immediately, all senses turned back on, and I begged to stop and told him we were far enough. I walked ten feet behind him, gasping for air, as he yelled into the phone over the gunfire and screams “grandpa, there’s been a terrorist attack! Can you pick us up?!” As I tried to run (really probably was just shuffling my feet like a zombie) I came across a woman screaming and crying into her phone, standing alone and frantically looking every direction. I asked if she was alone and she barely got out a “yes” so I grabbed her and told her to come with me. With someone under my care and my promise to get to safety, my mind was not able to process anything that was happening, and I was able to breathe again. Senses half on.

We followed Chase behind a pile of wood and metal sheets and hid. I looked behind us to see an open airport landing strip and could not help but think how terrible of a hiding place this was and imagined an entire militia coming from the airport to gun us down. I wanted to keep running but I was so tired so this would have to do. I wanted to call my mom and tell her we were ok but realized I had lost my phone probably while crawling around on the floor (phones are too big nowadays to fit in your pocket and stay there through gunfire). That was the only number I knew by heart and the only thought I had outside of surviving. I quickly texted my mom from Chase’s phone between him finding us a way out and him talking on the phone to the stranger’s husband on where to find us. Two more girls came running to find refuge in in our hiding spot, one was injured. They were in hysterical tears, one girl named Tyler was hurt and the other named Elisha pleaded to see her little girl again. I told them they could stay with us if they calmed down. At this time we didn’t know if there were multiple shooters, and I feared they would find us if the girls did not quiet down. The gunfire had possibly ended at this point, but the fear had not. The first stranger miraculously saw her friends walking through the airport and ran off to go with them. During this time there were still no thoughts other than how to get to safety and how to take care of these strangers. I was in complete momma bear mode, and these two girls were my cubs. Chase continued to call for help while I calmed the girls down and whispered to Tyler’s mom on the phone, ensuring her that we would get her daughter to the hospital and call her again when we got there. We had to move to Tropicana St to get picked up but couldn’t until the time was right. Multiple people came screaming and yelling and made me panic for they would surely blow our cover. I calmed the girls down enough just in time for when Chase told us it was time to move. I told Tyler to leave her flannel and hat because she kept fumbling with it, and it would only slow us down if she kept stopping to pick it up or adjust it. She cried and said she couldn’t because it was Elisha’s but Elisha told her “it’s just a hat, leave it!” We helped Tyler get out of our hiding spot and Chase and Elisha carried her on either side (I tried to help but was too short to be of any assistance to Tyler and had Elisha help instead) while I helped another girl who was separated from her group.

We ran by a lone shirtless man sitting against the building covered in blood. He was saying something, but our hands were full so how could I help him? I briefly stopped to look back at him, but the girl I was helping pulled me forward as she continued to run. Then I remembered my main concern was the three girls who we promised to get to safety. Every day I feel guilty for not checking on this man and every day I feel like a horrible monster because I don’t know if he is one of the 58 who lost their life who maybe didn’t need to. I’ve felt so much guilt that I never told anyone about it, until now: a year and 4 months later. I don’t even know if I told Chase about it.

I remember running to the flashing lights trying to flag down help for our new friend. I found a SWAT member and she asked “man down?” And I said “yes. Wait not hit but she has an injury.” I remember being so offended as she said “walking victims over there we will handle them separately” and I couldn’t process why she would send us to the side while everyone else sat around the ambulance and fire truck. I later learned from Chase that there were at least 20 people sitting near the truck that were bleeding from somewhere, or covered in someone else’s blood which is something I didn’t process as I looked around for someone of authority. Our new friends were safe with these people, but Elisha wanted to stay with us so we trekked on to Tropicana with our two new friends in tow. The other girl stayed behind with the paramedics. Once in the car and everyone was safe, I was no longer in mom mode. I went numb. I can’t tell you what I was thinking, because I wasn’t thinking anything at all. I hardly heard much of what Chase’s grandpa, Larry, was saying in the car. I didn’t even realize how hot it was and that we had been sweating so much during that time until I had to interrupt Larry and ask for the child lock windows to be rolled down.

Once in the house, we helped Tyler to a chair to get her leg on ice while Elisha called for a ride home. I hugged Chase’s grandma Patti, and it was the weirdest feeling in the world to hug someone and to feel grounded in reality. I hugged Larry and then went for Chase. It’s hard to see someone you love cry and hurt, but after all that we had just been through, I still wasn’t able to process why Chase was in tears, shaking, and holding me tight. I held him back in silence. Feeling awkward as I always do, I thought to myself “I guess I’ll go to the bathroom now.” I mindlessly washed my hands and could hear muffled crying and Larry’s attempts at calming everyone down on the other side of the door. There were no thoughts running through my head. I looked in the mirror, readjusted a blue flower in my hair buns and thought “wow, I can’t believe almost all my flowers are in place! I must have lost only one or two!” That’s the significant moment that made me realize what we had just endured: seeing my hair decor still in tact after running for our lives. All the feels hit me in that moment. The reality of what just happened smacked me across the face. “Oh, shit.” As the tears started to push through the cracks, I slowly walked outside to find Chase and quickened my pace when I spotted him. I grabbed him and broke down with tears pouring down my face. I stood wrapped in Chase’s arms and it felt as if my legs were about to give out. I just wanted to sit. I didn’t think to call my mom until Chase told me to do so. I never cried harder than when I heard her familiar and simple “Hi.”

After our new friends got picked up, we watched the news. It was real. It did happen. But only two people were dead at the time. I was relieved to know that the casualty number was low considering how long the nonstop automatic gun fire had gone on for. We both felt sick from all the adrenaline. In shock, I wrapped my shaking body in a blanket, laid on the couch, and stared. Larry was talking, the new anchors were talking, but I could not hear any of it. No thoughts. No feelings. Just staring at anything in front of me. And when I say no thoughts I mean like absolutely no thoughts. Numb is actually a thing.

We tried to sleep but our hearts were still running for their lives. I woke up screaming in imaginary pain claiming that a bar in the bed was stabbing me (I later discovered there wasn’t a bar anywhere near my ribs), and plenty of times I woke up gasping for air. We fell in and out of sleep for no longer than thirty minutes at a time and when it was finally bright outside our hearts had still not settled down. The death toll was at 2 people when we changed the news to a movie to try to put us to sleep, but when we woke up it was at 40 something. We sat in bed staring in silence at the TV. At the update of 58 I began to cry over the lives lost of people I never knew, but were so close to at the same time. We stopped at Metro Diner for breakfast where we were met with the KINDEST service ever. Our host asked how we were doing and I began to cry into Chase’s shoulder. I cried when our waitress came to the table and asked what we wanted to drink. I cried in the bathroom over the fact that I had to go to the bathroom to cry. I nearly cried when the manager came to personally buy our meals for us that we barely touched. I wanted to cry when I felt Chase shaking as the manager told us she was so happy that we made it out alive.

Our lives still went on. Work responsibilities didn’t stop. People at the Luxor still sat in really inconvenient globs blocking a clear path to get past the check in desk. The Luxor elevator passed us twice without even opening (yes, I did press the button, thank you very much). The traffic didn’t part ways for us. Our hunger came back. Subway sandwiches still suck. Cars merging on the freeway pushed my panic button. Everyone at the Apple Store became suspicious to me. My heart rate did not drop under 90 BPM until we got home to our little apartment with our cat babies, where I truly felt safe. I can guarantee the next time at work that I hear a plate drop or dishes thrown in the sink that I will flinch and have to try my best to not break down. I’m definitely not ok. Physically, I’m great. I got a few scratches and bruises in those nine minutes of fire, but emotionally I will take a while to recover. I don’t know if one of the many friends we made at the festival are one of the many who lost their lives or were sent to the hospital with injury. Assuming that the average family size is 3 per household, a minimum of 177 people lost an immediate family member, possibly 59 people lost their significant other, 1,581 people grieved while their family member laid in a hospital with a bullet lodged in their body or a broken limb from being trampled. Thousands more were indirectly affected. Each of those people are loved by friends, extended family, coworkers, regulars at work, classmates, teachers, pets, pizza delivery people…etc.

I strongly believe that if I weren’t with Chase that I would not be here today. I may have laid on the floor frozen and scared to move, unsure of where to go and where was safe. I might have taken the wrong step to my left and ran into a flying bullet. I might have tripped and not gotten back up with no one around to remind me to keep going. I thought in a moment where I came face to face with death that I would easily know what to do, but I was so overwhelmed and confused as I laid there on the asphalt listening to the cracks of bullets that I had no idea what to do next. I am so grateful that the love of my (thankfully ongoing) life was there to drag me to safety.

We saw things that no one should ever have to see. My eyes glazed over and didn’t process all the blood and death, so you can only imagine what it was like for those who registered it all and more. My heart breaks thinking of how many people lost their lives that night, how many children who had to see their parents or friends die, parents who will have to bury their children, and it breaks me even more knowing that bullets whizzed by and cracked the asphalt around us but did not take our lives. It hurts to know how many people needed help that we could not assist.

People are mad about the tragedy in Las Vegas, as they should be. They look for a reason, as is human nature. When people were saying things about the shooter, I didn’t feel much anger. I can’t pin the emotions I was feeling. You can be mad at me for this, but I do know that I felt bad for the shooter and the amount of suffering he had to have been going through to think that taking lives and inflicting physical and emotional pain on innocent people was his only way of relief. No matter how heinous of an act it was, I always try to feel from both sides. I can’t feel his exact pain, and I can’t feel the exact pain of the families who lost their kids, but I still hurt for all of them. This isn’t something that you can recover from. You can’t understand what people part of mass shootings feel or go through until you are there, no matter how many times you read this. A lot of me still isn’t sure if this happened or not. I still don’t know why I cry because after all, I’m alive, right? The stories I have read lift my spirits up so much knowing that there was so much good to counter the evil. There were men covering women on the floor or helping them jump fences to safety, random strangers were using their cars to transport victims, strangers carried the injured on guard rails through a downpour of bullets to ambulances, people were pushing others in wheel chairs or scooters with an existing injury. As terrible as Sunday night was, it was a night for the revival of hope for humanity. It took me to see all this horror to see that humanity, compassion, and bravery is still out there.

I hope you never have to understand what it was like to be in our shoes. I hope you never help me describe my feelings of confusion and nothingness, which don’t even describe it. It wasn’t exactly fear, it was something else that I’ve never felt before and something that I can’t put into words and hope you never have to understand. The feeling about what it was like to run and not look back to those we hurdled over is indescribable. The anguish I feel for those affected can’t be described by the entire dictionary. The gratitude I have for those in and out of uniform who risked their lives and ran into the bullet storm is ENDLESS, and I will never figure out how to thank each and every one of those people in a way that they deserve. Sunday night won’t take away the amazingness that was the Route 91 weekend. It took the lives of many but our good memories still remain and I continue to look for the good in life and in people. We are all stronger than we know, and stronger than others think. We will recover.