Narrative Storytelling for Brands

A Night of Trauma

by Clayton Heilman, Storyteller

Kelsey and her mom sat on the couch, ready to begin their end-of-summer tradition — their

Fantasy Football draft. Armed with player statistics, draft plans, and projections, Kelsey’s

competitiveness was beginning to show while a documentary film played in the background of

the football conversation. Kelsey’s dad walked into the room and asked what they were up to;

he had forgotten that football season had arrived. Leaving the women to their fun, he headed

upstairs to relax in his home office.

A short while later, with their fantasy teams drafted, Kelsey and her mom went upstairs to get

ready for bed and finish watching their documentary. Kelsey noticed the lights were off in her

dad’s office and that it was quiet. He must have fallen asleep at his desk, she thought to

herself. A moment later, her mother’s scream broke the silence.

Kelsey ran down the hall to find her mother frantically shaking her father’s shoulders. He had

his legs propped up on his desk and his head back, like he had simply fallen asleep while

working. But the screaming and shaking wasn’t waking him up. The dog began barking as

Kelsey dialed 911 for help. The paramedics arrived, but it was too late.

In the weeks that followed, Kelsey didn’t know how to process everything that had happened.

She had just graduated from college, their family had gone on a great vacation together, and

she was applying to a graduate program at USC.

She questioned why her dad had to die when he seemed healthy and life seemed to be going

so well. During the funeral, well-meaning friends tried to comfort her, but Kelsey just needed

space. Stressed out and depressed, she chose to distance herself from the people around

her. Her family now had a hole where her father’s presence had been. He wouldn’t be there to

walk her down the aisle at her wedding, and he wouldn’t see her graduate from USC; she

needed him and he was gone.

Frustrated, she blamed God. Her dad’s death wasn’t fair and she felt like God had robbed her

of one of the most important relationships in her life. Even though she’d been raised in the

church, Kelsey decided she didn’t need it anymore. She thought she could find her own way

to make the most of life.

Kelsey tried to move on as if life was normal. She successfully completed her program at

USC and began teaching. But the first school that she worked for ended up having significant

administration problems, and Kelsey couldn’t stay beyond the first year. At the same time,

Kelsey had been with her boyfriend for a few years, and she thought a proposal was right

around the corner. But right before she left her job, their relationship fell apart.

Always staying positive and hopeful, Kelsey began planning fun events with her friends. A

music festival she had always wanted to go to was coming up in a few months, so Kelsey

bought tickets and two friends, Jenna and Cierra, made arrangements to join her in Las

Vegas for the Route 91 Harvest festival. They booked a hotel right next to the concert venue

and looked forward to a weekend of fun and great music.Kelsey, Cierra, and Jenna were standing right in front of the stage during Jason Aldean’s

performance. It was a great location to see the band and hear the music. As the performance

began, Kelsey heard what sounded like fireworks coming, but she didn’t think much of the

unexpected noise. The atmosphere was fun and festive; it didn’t seem abnormal that

someone would be lighting off firecrackers. But then people to her left and right began falling

down to the ground, and screams began erupting around them. As the gunman opened fire

on the crowd, the girls’ prime location would become one of the most dangerous places to be

standing.

The crowd surged as people fled in every direction. After being frozen in fear for what seemed

like hours, the girls took off running and were immediately separated. As Kelsey ran, she

watched as people held loved ones on the ground around her. Her mind was in full panic; she

had no idea where to go or what to do. Nothing in life had prepared her for a moment like this.

She found an ATM machine that gave her temporary cover until police entered the area and

showed her which way to run. Kelsey didn’t stop sprinting until she entered the lobby of her

nearby hotel, where many of the frightened concert attendees had retreated, as well.

Everyone was sharing whatever information and misinformation they had — some people

thought the gunman was just outside the hotel they were in, others thought there were bombs

going off. Kelsey headed for the overcrowded elevator to get to the safety of her room.

Within minutes of opening her door, Jenna, Cierra, and another frightened girl who had gotten

caught up in the flight were inside the room together and reunited. Kelsey closed the blinds,

shut the lights off, and the four girls huddled on the floor in between the two beds. They sat

awake all night long, afraid to talk, afraid to turn the lights on, afraid to use the bathroom, and

afraid to run the sink to wash the blood and dirt off that was smeared across their arms and

legs.

The next morning, fueled by the adrenaline of the previous night’s events, Kelsey drove

straight home on no sleep. She walked in her front door into the arms of her mom and

grandma who couldn’t be happier to see her, alive and safe after the horrific tragedy. But the

lasting effects from that night in Vegas would continue to take their toll.

She couldn’t sleep at night, often waking from nightmares. At unexpected moments, she

would find her mind taking her back to that night in a flashback, completely losing touch with

reality. Two weeks later, she had to resign from her new teaching position after having a

flashback in the middle of the day with a classroom full of students.

As she struggled to find her “new normal” and learn how to deal with the trauma of living

through a mass shooting, Kelsey heard about a trauma-counseling night at Saddleback

Church for Harvest Festival survivors. Saddleback was the church she had given up on two

years before, after her father’s death, but now she saw them reaching out to help her in her

time of need.

When Kelsey walked into the tent at the Lake Forest campus, she was surprised to see

counselors sitting at every table, where groups of survivors could sit and talk about their

experience and share their stories in a safe environment. It was a big first step in Kelsey’s

emotional healing and healing in her relationship with God and the church. Maybe, she

thought, if the church cares this much for people in the community, I should give it another

chance.A family friend attended Saddleback’s Rancho Capistrano campus and Kelsey began joining

her on the weekends. She has found the Rancho campus the perfect setting to connect with

healthy Christian community again. Inspired by the counseling night for shooting surviviros,

Kelsey has looked for more ways to get involved at church, going through all of Saddleback’s

Classes so she can give back to others and share what God has done in her life in spite of

the tragedies she’s faced. The symptoms of her PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) are

affecting her less frequently, but she’s still looking for ways to continue her healing journey.

She regularly meets with a counselor for one-on-one sessions and had her lab-shepherd-mix

dog, Olive, trained to become her service dog to help her if she’s out in public and has a

flashback.

Kelsey has found that most people fail to understand what she went through. She’s been

interrogated for having her service dog with her in public because she “looks fine,” and she’s

found that she has to be careful about activities she is part of, as crowds, lights, or loud

noises can easily trigger a flashback.

Her friends realized the severity of a flashback when the home run fireworks at an Angels

baseball game triggered a 10-minute flashback for Kelsey. When she came to, they remarked

how out-of-it she was. They sat with her and comforted her. Kelsey felt embarrassed at her

public lapse of consciousness but was grateful to have good friends close by for support.

Kelsey is learning to take the good and bad days in stride as she continues to overcome her

PTSD from the shooting. When she was in high school, a friend that struggled with

depression had taught her a strategy to focus on one happy thing every day, no matter how

hard that day is, and Kelsey has spent every day of the past spring and summer collecting

those one-happy-items-per-day to share on Instagram and the Route 91 survivor groups she

belongs to on Facebook. When the one-year anniversary of the Harvest festival arrives, she

will have collected six months of daily happiness that she’s been able to share with the people

around her.

Though her life looks very different from a year before, Kelsey feels like she’s on a good path

to healing. She plans to begin counseling training next year to help other people process and

heal from trauma in their lives.

Kelsey didn’t expect her life to take the dramatic twists beginning with her father’s death and

culminating in her experience of surviving a mass shooting, but she realizes these events

have led her back to her faith and trust in God and made her more aware of what’s important

in her life. She is now teaching at a Christian school nearby and is writing a book to help all

survivors of mass shootings. Surrounded by great friends and a church family, she’s ready to

move forward in life with renewed purpose and faith, excited to make a difference in the lives

of others and share her story of healing.