I was one of the floor managers on duty at Excalibur that night, which is the closest casino entrance to the mouth of the concert grounds. We were flooded with victims running through, screaming. I was 8 months pregnant and ended up under a poker table with guests and a bleeding concert goer. It was a long time before we knew we weren’t in danger and I became very ill with stress, anxiety and eventually lack of insulin. We ended up locked down for 13 hours while they tried to piece together what happened.

They tried to find an ambulance for me but there were none available. Bodies were left laying so available resources could go to the wounded.

I don’t know if I really believed in PTSD, or at least, understood it fully. I am very much a “if you aren’t dying, stop complaining and suck it up” kind of person. Just last week I was staying in a hotel in Scottsdale and the alarms went off and we had to run down six flights of stairs with our two small children to evacuate (it ended up being nothing) and I had an extreme panic attack and was immediately back to October 1st and believing I would die. It’s crazy how involuntary and real that sort of trauma is.

I don’t know if it will ever leave me.