The strength of a mass shooting survivor
The 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting remains the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history, killing 58 innocent people while attending a country music festival.
News 11 spoke to a Southern California native who survived that shooting.
Mike Jerome Putnam shared how the recent events in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas triggered memories from that horrific day in Vegas.
October 1, 2017, is a day Putnam will never forget.
He remembers enjoying his third day at the Route 91 Harvest Festival , saying, ” Jason Aldean was the artist that everybody came to see. He was singing one of our favorite songs when we heard what sounded like firecrackers. ”
But those sounds were gunshots.
Luckily, Putnam, a former sheriff’s deputy, followed his first instinct; which was to go into survival mode, protecting himself and his date.
Unfortunately, 58 people didn’t make it out alive and hundreds were wounded.
” I had severe survivors’ guilt. As a former first responder who did not go back out there, it sent me into a severe deep depression, ” Putnam said.
As a coping mechanism, Putnam created The Official Route 91 Survivors Support Group on Facebook, uniting nearly 7,000 other survivors from that horrific massacre.
Now, he welcomes survivors from Gilroy, Dayton, El Paso, or any of the 255 mass shootings in 2019 to know that there’s strength in numbers.
Putnam said, ” [Survivors] need to talk to someone, you saw some horrific things. You survived a tragic event. But knowing that you’re talking to someone who can totally relate to how you feel, that saw what you saw and went through what you went through, really goes a long way. ”
As many victims and survivors, Putnam said he would’ve never expected it to happen to him, which changed his entire outlook on life in America.
” We definitely do not live in Mayberry anymore. The world has changed. You have to adapt to it and you have to become a survivor, ” he said.
Putnam advises people to never underestimate your surroundings, always look for an exit where ever you are, and be aware of surrounding people.
