Oct. 1 shooting survivors Angelic Parrinello and Angel Cortum hug Desert Springs Hospital employees after delivering thank-you baskets at the hospital and other locations on Friday, Dec. 8, 2017.
Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017 | 2 a.m.
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That fateful October night, the married couple ran, paused, dropped to the floor, and at one point played dead, Chad Robertson covering his wife to shield her from the hail of bullets.
When they found refuge between a generator and a food truck, a plainclothes officer carrying a badge and a pistol told them to take cover.
But it wasn’t long before the gunfire grew louder and felt closer, ricocheting off nearby fencing and pavement. So the officer — with “a lot of fear in his face” — told the Route 91 Harvest festival attendees, “You've got to go. You've got to save yourselves. It’s time to go,” Chad Robertson said.
During a meeting with a peer support group back home in Colorado the next day, the Robertsons spearheaded a plan to thank first responders, such as the still-unidentified officer who urged them to run or the SWAT personnel who ushered them to safety.
“I don’t remember faces from that night,” said Chad Robertson, as he held back tears. “We want them all to know ... that we’re eternally grateful for everything they’ve done.”
Baskets for heroes
The tokens of appreciation came in the form of 1,000 gift baskets for first responders across the Las Vegas Valley. On Friday, Chad Robertson and other Oct. 1 massacre survivors from across the country began delivering the care packages to hospitals, police stations, firehouses and ambulance companies.
Inside a narrow break room at Desert Springs Hospital, where 108 of the more than 500 injured in the shooting were treated, Angel Cortum, 55, fought back tears. "I can’t guarantee you that I’m not going to cry when I say thank you.”
And she did when medical providers arrived. "On behalf of the attendees, survivors, everyone from Route 91: This is our way of saying thank you for everything you guys did for our family, and that all of the people who came here alive left alive," she said. "I just want a hug."
Cortum, local survivor Angelic Parrinello, 37, and the medical workers embraced.
"Bonded for life"
Cortum, of Corona, Calif., and her friends, including one whose friendship dates back to grade school, were at the festival as part of the fifth-annual customary "girls trip" to Las Vegas. That Sunday, they'd decided to upgrade and listened to country music star Jason Aldean from an elevated VIP platform.
Cortum occasionally uses a wheelchair because of an illness. When gunfire crackled, her friends, who were standing behind her, realized she was a "sitting duck" and knocked her to the ground. A shooting victim fell on top of them, she said. They helped her as best they could, she added.
She and her friends made it out physically unscathed, but they knew a couple of the fatal victims. Cortum commemorated the tragedy with a tattoo on her right forearm of a purple ribbon wrapped around a casino chip with a Route 91 logo. Part of the ribbon transforms to doves flying away. "Survivor," the ink says.
About the state of her inner-group's friendship, Cortum said, "We're bonded for life, but that's a bond I don't wish on anybody."
Although, Cortum said, she's made 22,000 new friends.
Eight minutes
Since the shooting, the Parrinello family has been on high alert, formulating escape plans in the unfortunate case a gunman barrages through a public space. It happened during a DMV visit and while at an elementary school function. "I hated the noise," Parrinello said.
The festival weekend had been planned for months. Parrinello and her husband took their 15-year-old daughter with them, giving two of the teen's friends extra tickets they'd bought for the girl's grandparents, who couldn't make it.
A Saturday night performance had left the couple with sensitive ears, so they'd stood toward the back, while their daughter and her friends enjoyed the music from about 15 feet from the left-front stage. When the gunman pulled the trigger, the distance and chaos kept the couple and their daughter incommunicado for eight minutes.
"Incredibly smart" high school boys led the teen to safety but not before she'd climbed through three fences, seeing dead bodies and blood throughout the grounds, Parrinello said.
The aftermath of the carnage has been especially difficult for her and her daughter, Parrinello said. The woman has felt marginalized by acquaintances who tell her that it's been weeks and she should shake off the sadness. But in speaking with survivors, it was an "instant connection" and she found that, "Everything I was feeling, every single one of them understood and told me I wasn't crazy, while everyone in my real life was telling me to get over it."
“I don’t know if I’m ever going to be 100 percent healed,” Parrinello said, but the shooting has not stopped her from going out. She and her husband went to a country concert last weekend and were planning on attending another this weekend.
If she wasn't enjoying her life? "What good is it that I made it out if I'm not going to appreciate that I still have one?"
Acts of kindness
The Robertsons' connection to Las Vegas has deep roots. They married at Mandalay Bay 12 years ago and visit up to four times a year, Chad Robertson said. This trip wasn't any different than last year's when they attended the Route 91 festival for the first time.
"There was no better venue" because it was right on the Strip, with easy access, he said. "It was just a blast."
"This year, it was no different until that moment (gunshots rang out)," he said.
On Thursday, he arrived to Las Vegas for the first time since Oct. 1. His wife still wasn't ready to make the trip, but was here in spirit, he added.
Robertson and two other survivors retraced their steps near the festival grounds on Thursday. They walked by nearby Hooters, the Tropicana and Desert Rose Resort, where they ended up after the shooting, trying to figure out what happened, said Robertson, pausing to cry.
"It was tough. I had a hard time ... looking back, it just doesn't make any sense. I don't know what I missed or what was missing from that night, but I think we got close."
However, after roughly two hours of exploring, Robertson said. “When we got back there was a little bit of weight off your shoulders, we felt a little bit of clarity.”
He knows of survivors who have found new meaning to life — admiring Christmas lights, buying strangers coffee, or leaving a $58 dollar tip on a $20 check, Robertson said.
Robertson's return to Las Vegas felt good. "This is a moment to come back and take a piece of this back, (to say) we’re not scared of this city, we’re not scared of the bad people in this world, that we’re going to continue to move on to be strong as a community and we’re gong to continue to enjoy our country music and not let one bad person take that away from us.”
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In the first four days, the Las Vegas First Responder Thank You Fund, in collaboration with Foundation 1023, raised $25,000 for the baskets. As of Friday, donations totaled nearly $40,000, according to organizers.
Help from businesses in Colorado kept expenses down while roughly 125 volunteers assembled the baskets, Chad Robertson said.
