PNW survivors of the Las Vegas massacre reunite in Seattle
Jan 22, 2018, 1:57 PM
(KIRO 7)
About 50 Pacific Northwest survivors of the Las Vegas massacre reunited in Seattle on Sunday, a little over three months after the tragic shooting left 58 dead and hundreds more injured.
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“It’s the first time a lot of them have had a chance to interact with each other and talk to people that could literally understand what they went through because they also went through it,” Tom Tangney said on the Tom and Curley Show on Monday.
KIRO 7 News spoke with some of the people in attendance, including Steve Munoz, a Renton survivor of the shooting.
“This was a healing process to know that there was this many of us that were at the concert and were affected by it. You know, it hits home. It gets emotional. But just knowing that we’re all here and that we made it and that we’re here for each other has been helpful,” Munoz told KIRO 7.
Dennis Guerrero, a freelance photographer from California who also survived the shooting, was in Seattle capturing the event in photographs.
“I’m trying to make sure that that guy doesn’t rob us anymore. That love always wins no matter what. That we always come forward, we always stand in the middle of the darkness and let people know that they’re not alone,” Guerrero told KIRO 7 News. “I feel like every time we have one of these I get a piece of my soul back.”
An event like Sunday’s really can bring healing to people who have suffered together in some way, said KIRO Radio’s John Curley. Curley said he’s reading a book called “Mating in Captivity” that talks about the intimate bonds that can be formed between people who share in tragic events like the Las Vegas massacre.
“It’s a very unique linking chain that connects all of these people together into a real sense of intimacy that other people can’t possibly understand,” Curley said.