Bright lives snuffed out in terrifying hail of lead
Single mom, beloved teacher, brave hubby, best bud among dead
A single mom of four on a romantic getaway with her fiancé; a nurse and his wife seeing their country-music idol; a beloved special-ed teacher letting her hair down.
These are just some of the lives cut short when a gunman opened fire in Las Vegas Sunday night.
At least 59 people were fatally gunned down in the attack on the Route 91 Harvest festival, leaving survivors and relatives devastated Monday as they recalled their loved ones’ final moments.
“He saved my life,” Heather Melton told USA Today of her slain husband, Sonny.
“He grabbed me from behind and started running when I felt him get shot in the back.”
The couple both worked at the Henry County Medical Center in Paris, Tenn. Sonny, 29, was a registered nurse, and Heather is an orthopedic surgeon.
Christopher Roybal, a 28-year-old Navy vet who served in Afghanistan, last posted on Facebook on July 18 when he wrote: “What’s it like being shot at?”
The Corona, Calif., man recalled several close calls while in Afghanistan and concluded the eerie Facebook posting with his own answer.
“It’s a nightmare no amount of drugs, no amount of therapy and no amount of drunk talks with your war veteran buddies will ever be able to escape,” he wrote.
Adrian Murfitt, 35, a commercial fisherman from Anchorage, Alaska, was at the concert celebrating a great fishing season when he was shot in the neck and died in his buddy’s arms.
“We were taking a picture and it went through his neck,” his childhood friend Brian MacKinnon told the Alaska Dispatch News.
“There’s a lot of amazing people — there was nurses, doctors, firemen. Everybody who was at that concert really jumped on it, did everything they could. We just couldn’t save him.”
MacKinnon told the paper that cops had to talk him into leaving his friend’s body as he ran to save himself from the hail of gunfire.
Jordan McIldoon, a 23-year-old mechanic apprentice from Canada, took his last breath as a stranger held him.
“I am with a young man who died in my arms! RIP Jordan mcildoon from British Columbia. I can’t believe this just happened!!!” Heather Gooze wrote on Facebook as the chaos was still unfolding.
McIldoon’s parents confirmed his death to the CBC, commemorating their son as a “self-described cowboy boot, tattoo-covered redneck who loved the outdoors.”
“We only had one child. We just don’t know what to do,” they told the Canadian news outlet.
The sister of another victim also recalled saying goodbye in a touching tribute.
“Laying next to you in the hospital bed all night was the hardest thing i’ve gone through but you made me feel so at peace and i know you are with me,” Nevada resident Skylar Robbins wrote on Twitter of her brother Quinton, 20, who died Monday.
“I was smiling through tears saying goodbye to you for the last time because i know you would be saying ‘smell ya’ with your little smirk you always do while saying bye to me.” Others mourned from afar. Students and staff at Manhattan Beach Middle School, near Los Angeles, arrived on campus Monday morning to learn that a cherished special-ed teacher, Sandy Casey, was among the dead — and that several other teachers had narrowly escaped the slaughter.
“We lost a spectacular teacher who devoted her life to helping
some of our most needy students,” District Superintendent Mike Matthews told the Daily Breeze.
A kindergarten teacher and mother of two was another California educator among the dead.
The Palmdale mom, Jenny Parks, was visiting her husband’s two brothers in Vegas at the time, CNN reported. Her husband, Bobby, took a bullet to the arm, but survived.
“She was truly one of the most loving people you could ever hope to meet,” Bobby’s uncle Steven McCarthy told the network. “She always went out of her way to help anybody.”
A Canadian woman who worked as an educational assistant, bus driver and librarian for a Catholic school while raising four kids of her own was also among the slain.
The single mother, Jessica Klymchuk, 28, of Alberta, was at the festival with her soon-to-be husband, Brent Irla.
Klymchuk and Irla became engaged in April, according to a post celebrating the occasion on the groom-to-be’s Facebook page.
“Since meeting Brent my world has changed, his smile is something I can’t live without and his laugh is contagious, I am so excited for our future together,” Klymchuk wrote in a comment.