Vegas Stronger
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
October 1, 2018 in Las Vegas was different.
Jo Zutell, a Red Cross trauma responder, can’t get that thought out of her head as she walks through Las Vegas, one year after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Zutell, a mental health specialist from Prescott, Arizona, was called to Las Vegas immediately after the shooting. Part of her job was to help families and friends as they learned that their loved ones were dead or injured in the shooting.
Families came to the Las Vegas Convention Center without knowing whether their loved ones were alive, she said. Many brought photographs to identify the missing.
Time, she feels, has brought the city’s residents some comfort.
“Last year, people were wearing ‘Vegas Strong,’” Zutell said. “Today, they’re wearing Vegas Stronger.”
Standing below the Mandalay Bay hotel, California resident George Diaz looked up at the massive gold structure that for many of the victims of the Las Vegas shooting represents the worst night of their lives.
Diaz was among them, at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival with more than 30 friends, when more than 1,100 rounds were fired from the hotel’s 32nd floor. More than 850 people were injured, and 58 died.
But Diaz doesn’t see the devil in the building.
“It’s just a building that some guy choose to use, to exploit whatever was going on in his mind,” he said.
But he does remember the horror. He remembers watching as a woman clung to a lifeless body. He remembers running for his life. He remembers the relief when he learned that both of his daughters were alive.
And Diaz will not forget.
“We’re here this weekend, to honor the people that were here that night, and the 58 people that lost their lives as well as all the other people that were wounded and injured and all the other things that go along with that,” he said.
On the third night of the concert, when the shots rang out, his group was spread out throughout the venue.
Shae Diaz, George Diaz’s daughter, spent the days before the anniversary in Tempe, Arizona, studying for her midterms at Arizona State University. Even though she was hard at work, her mind kept returning to the night of the shooting.
She recalled being upset on the third night of the concert, when her sister returned to their hotel room because she was feeling sick.
Looking back, now she’s only glad that her sister wasn’t at the venue.
She has kept all the photos of the days and hours leading up the the shooting. Her concert bracelet and the poems friends have written for her are constant reminders that she’s lucky to still be alive.
While Shae and George Diaz did not have to deal with the death of a loved one at the concert, there are hundreds who were not as lucky.
Neysa Tonks, a mother of three, was among those who died at the concert. She was 46.
Her parents, Debbie and Chris Davis, sat in the audience during the sunrise remembrance ceremony the morning of Oct. 1, 2018.
“Together, we pulled ourselves up from that darkness,” Debbie Davis said, “and found light because our daughter was full of energy and full of life and full of love and she would not want us to live in that darkness.”
At the ceremony, they listened to their other daughter, Mynda Smith, talk about the healing process.
“None of us will ever be the same after that night and the days that followed,” Smith said. “However, none of us were alone.”
She was talking from experience.
On Oct. 2, 2017, when she walked into the convention center, Smith was already trying to wrap her mind around the fact that her sister might be dead. But amidst the turmoil, she saw the city’s people and volunteers from around the country looking to help. A line of cars dropped off food and other supplies. Blood drives sprang up across the U.S.
“This wasn’t just our journey,” Smith said. “Over time we’ve been blessed to connect with so many new friends many of whom become family. Most of the 58 families have joined forces and together we find strength we have found ways to heal.”
Nurses, responders and even service animals answered the call and came to Las Vegas to help the victims and their families after the shooting.
It took three days for Smith and her parents to find Tonks’ body and identify her.
Davis, her husband and Smith have since started a scholarship fund, Children of The 58, to the surviving children of the victims killed in the Las Vegas mass shooting.
“This anniversary, Oct. 1, it approached quicker than we ever thought it would,” said Debbie Davis. “It seemed like a dreadful thing that was coming but it has actually been uplifting and strengthening.
“You cannot imagine the love that was poured out to us. And that should be what we remember on Oct. 1.”
The 58 victims of the Las Vegas shooting
Hannah Ahlers
Heather Alvarado
Dorene Anderson
Carrie Barnette
Jack Beaton
Steve Berger
Candice Bowers
Denise Burditus
Sandy Casey
Andrea Castilla
Denise Cohen
Austin Davis
Thomas Day, Jr.
Christiana Duarte
Stacee Etcheber
Brian Fraser
Keri Galvan
Dana Gardner
Angela Gomez
Rocio Guillen Rocha
Charleston Hartfield
Chris Hazencomb
Jennifer Topaz Irvine
Teresa Nicol Kimura
Jessica Klymchuk
Carly Kreibaum
Rhonda LeRocque
Victor Link
Jordan McIldoon
Kelsey Meadows
Calla-Marie Medig
James “Sonny” Melton
Patricia Mestas
Austin Meyer
Adrian Murfitt
Rachael Parker
Jenny Parks
Carrie Parsons
Lisa Patterson
John Phippen
Melissa Ramirez
Jordyn Rivera
Quinton Robbins
Cameron Robinson
Tara Roe
Lisa Romero-Muniz
Chris Roybal
Brett Schwanbeck
Bailey Schweitzer
Laura Shipp
Erick Silva
Susan Smith
Brennan Stewart
Derrick “Bo” Taylor
Neysa Tonks
Michelle Vo
Kurt von Tillow
Bill Wolfe