On Oct. 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire at a Las Vegas music festival killing 59 people and injuring more than 500 others. As the horror unfolded, heroic firefighters, concertgoers and police officers saved many more innocent people from being harmed. Here are the heroes of that fateful attack.
Naturally, the mainstream media decided to dedicate its time to the weapons used to cause the carnage, as if firearms are somehow sentient. Let’s meet the actual heroes of the event that prevented far more people from being killed.
Taylor Winston
Taylor Wilson, an Iraqi war veteran, was near the stage when the gunfire started. He said that the gunshots sounded like fireworks. However, he soon realized that people were dropping to the ground. Wilson sprang into action, commandeering a stranger’s truck to rush the critically wounded to the hospital. Winston and his friend Jenn Lewis made two trips to the local Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center, transporting more than twenty people to the hospital for emergency care.
Winston was rewarded with a brand new vehicle of his own for his bravery. Arizona dealership B5 Motors decided to give Winston a new truck as a “thank you” for his quick thinking and courage that night.
Jonathan Smith
Jonathan Smith was shot trying to help people during the massacre. He will probably live with a bullet lodged in his neck for the rest of his life, a never-ending reminder of the fateful night.
The 30-year-old father had attended the concert with a group of family members. When bullets rained down on the crowd, Smith jumped into action and helped get people to safety. He later said that he did not think of himself as a hero, telling the Washington Post that he would want someone to do the same for him.
Sonny Melton
Sonny Melton and his wife Heather Gulish Melton were attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival when shots rang out. Both worked at the Henry County Medical Center in Tennessee.
The pair had gone to Las Vegas to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. Sonny Melton died shielding his wife from bullets. She performed CPR on him after he was shot in the back. Unfortunately, Sonny did not make it. Heather told Today that she and Sonny had a kind of love that “fills you up every single day.” She says that she will carry that love with her forever.
Jack Beaton
Sweethearts since high school, Laurie and Jack Beaton were celebrating their 23rd wedding anniversary at the outdoor concert on that fateful day that bullets rained down on concertgoers. A Facebook photo that Jack took shows the two of them drinking beers and smiling at 7:46 PM that night, just hours before the attack.
When the gunfire began, the pair initially thought that it was fireworks. When they realized that it was gunfire, Jack laid his body on top of Laurie’s to shield her from bullets. Jack was shot in the back. His last words were “I love you, Laurie.” The couple’s son asked for prayers saying that his dad was a real hero that night.
Kevin and Dawn-Marie Gray
Husband and wife Dawn-Marie and Kevin Gray won tickets to the Route 91 Harvest Festival through a radio station. They were ecstatic to be attending the event. However, that happiness soon turned to horror.
When the gunfire started, the two took shelter in a VIP area. But rather than staying there, the two risked their safety to come out and administer help to the wounded. Dawn-Marie, a paramedic, knew that local paramedics would not be able to help until the area was deemed safe. So, she and her husband tended to the wounded. They made tourniquets, checked for pulses and provided CPR.
The couple also helped load victims into vehicles to go to the hospital. Like so many other heroes, Kevin and Dawn-Marie played down their actions that day saying that it “had nothing to do with being a hero,” but rather a “human being. ”
These are just a few of the heroes that acted bravely that night. Many others have not been identified. Teenager Addison Short is still searching for the good Samaritan who wrapped her leg in a tourniquet and threw her over his shoulder, carrying her to a taxi after she had been shot. Elle Gargano was shot in the back of the head at the festival. Several concertgoers helped her get over the fence and off the festival grounds. They then hailed a passing motorist to take Gargano to a hospital. She is alive today thanks to the help of those strangers. T
here are several Facebook groups set up to help reunite the victims of the Mass shooting with their heroes, including Find My Lv Hero and Reunite Route 91.
~ Liberty Planet
