Mom: I’ll help child to heal after Vegas
Monica Crane desperately wants to erase her daughter’s memories of Las Vegas. Of crouching to avoid bullets, of running into the unknown to escape a spray of bullets and of piling on top of other women in a cramped metal food cart to save her life.
When Crane embraces her daughter Friday morning at Orlando International Airport, the mother says she wants to absorb the fear she heard in her only child’s voice just minutes after she escaped gunfire in Las Vegas on Sunday night.
Nichole Crane, 28, is one of the survivors of the attack that killed at least 59 and injured 527 people.
“I can’t take away that experience from her. I can’t undo the terror, the horror, of not knowing which way she was going to run,” Monica Crane said. “This is something she’s going to have to live with the rest of her life, and that’s what bothers me.”
Nichole Crane and her boyfriend, Connor Rodrigo, raced as far as they could from the scene, when they found safety at an Americas Best Value Inn more than a mile away. A German couple visiting the country let them stay the night in their room, on an extra queen-size bed. Their own room at the Excalibur, just two blocks away from the shooting, stayed empty.
Nichole Crane, a Sanford native, is flying to Orlando for her 10-year high school reunion at Seminole High School this weekend. Seeing Nichole will be a relief and a blessing that Monica Crane said she realizes parents of dozens of others won’t get.
“I’m so grateful they made it out of there, but I feel a lot of sorrow for the people who didn’t,” Monica said.
Nichole, speaking to the Sentinel from her car Monday night as Rodrigo drove to their home in Salt Lake City, said she remembers calling her mother and breathlessly telling her she survived a mass shooting.
But Monica Crane worries her daughter won’t be OK after what she experienced. Nichole said she’s already decided she won’t attend another country-music concert in Salt Lake City, for which she and Rodrigo already have tickets. She’ll also pass on a Halloween Horror Night trip they’d planned.
For now, though, Monica Crane says she is focused on helping her daughter one step at a time, starting with a hug at the airport when Nichole arrives.
“There will be an extra meaning to it knowing how close she was to being one of the victims,” Monica said.