Kalispell couple adjusts to life after Las Vegas tragedy

It took Stephanie Franklin about a week before she could open the suitcase she brought home from Las Vegas.

She didn’t want to see her dirty clothes from lying on the ground. She didn’t want to see her broken shoe.

She lifted the shirt she bought to wear to the Route 91 Harvest country music festival, noticing something shiny stuck to the back of it. It looked like a piece of a bullet melted to the fabric.

“That could have been a bullet hitting me on my left side, right where my heart is,” she said.

It sent chills through her spine.

“There really were bullets flying. That wasn’t my imagination. It wasn’t a dream,” she said. “It’s a terrifying thing to see.”

Back at home in Kalispell, weeks after the mass shooting where 58 people lost their lives and hundreds were injured, Stephanie and her husband, Matt, are trying to figure out a “new normal.”

EVERYTHING LEADING up to that moment had been amazing.

Stephanie, 32, and Matt, 31, left their children in good hands in the Flathead Valley to enjoy some quality time with each other and another couple from Bakersfield, Calif.

They had a nice dinner, hung out at the pool and enjoyed the city. The first two days of the Route 91 Harvest festival were filled with good times.

“The energy of the crowd was just fun. There was no fighting. There were no rude people. It was just like a giant family. You could literally just walk up to someone and start dancing with them and they would dance right back with you,” Stephanie said.

Stephanie woke up on Sunday feeling “blah” for no reason. But once Jason Aldean, one of her favorite musicians, began playing it didn’t take her long to get into a better mood.

Aldean had just started singing one of her favorites “When She Says Baby” when Stephanie heard a popping noise. It sounded like firecrackers.

At first she thought it was just someone being silly, but then the crowd split apart. People were running and screaming. She knew something was seriously wrong — they were being shot at.

“My first instinct was to cover our heads,” Stephanie said.

She and her husband got through a barricade and attempted to shelter themselves. They pulled a couple about their parents’ age under with them. They had no idea where the bullets were coming from.

During a slight break in the barrage of gunfire her husband yelled, “We have to get out of here!” But as soon as they started to run, the shots started up again.

They hit the ground. Her husband lay on top of her as they heard bullets spraying the crowd, hitting the tower above them. Stephanie prayed harder than she ever had before. They had no choice but to lay there for about 10 minutes. It felt like forever.

“I was prepared to take a bullet. I was mentally prepared to die. But I was not mentally prepared for my kids to not have parents,” Stephanie said, holding back tears.

“So many people did not get to go home to their kids; and I felt lucky and blessed, but I feel guilty. Why didn’t I get shot? Why was I spared? That’s the hardest thing to deal with right now. Why it happened and why our lives were spared and we got to go home.”

WHEN IT felt like the bullets had finally stopped, Matt said, “You need to run as fast as you can. Do not look at the ground. Just concentrate on getting out of here.”

She took her shoes off and ran for her life.

“I ran as fast as I could, literally just waiting for a bullet to hit me in the back, thinking please don’t start shooting again. Luckily, he did not,” Stephanie said. “I couldn’t help but see people resuscitating people. And people being carried out on pieces of those barricades as stretchers. There was shoes, purses, hats, blood.”

“As we got closer to the exit, there were cops with guns drawn and patrons yelling ‘Go, Go, Go! Keep running, keep running!’ It was mass panic. People screaming and running everywhere.”

As the Franklins were running they noticed two girls bleeding badly, crying hysterically.

“I grabbed one of their hands and my husband grabbed the other girls hand and we said ‘We have to keep going we have to get out of here,’” Stephanie said.

In a state of shock, they ran through a parking lot and gathered behind an abandoned building. Stephanie inspected the girls’ injuries. The girls had scaled a barbed-wire fence to get away, and one had gashed open her chin and broken her arm. They made sure the girls had help before continuing their journey back to the hotel about 3 miles away.

“As soon as I walked into the [hotel room], I collapsed. My brain couldn’t even process what I had just seen, done, heard, smelled… all of those will be burned in my brain forever and I know that,” Stephanie said.

The group of friends lay on the bed crying and holding each other.

That night, Stephanie and Matt couldn’t sleep.

“Every sound, every person walking down the hallway made you jump,” Stephanie said.

The trip home the next day wasn’t any easier.

“I was terrified to go in the airport, to be in an open public space with crowds of people. I just sat there shaking and crying until we got on our flight.”

WHEN THE Franklins returned to the Flathead, they went straight to see their 13-year-old son.

“I had never been so glad to be holding him,” Stephanie said. Then they went to Stephanie’s mom’s house to reunite with their 2-year-old.

“I was trying so hard not to cry in front of him, because you never want them to think that something is wrong. He kept asking, ‘You OK mommy?’” Stephanie said.

“My heart breaks for all those families that lost people, that didn’t get to go home and hug their kids. Their kids will never have them again.”

The couple has been adjusting back home.

“We’ve had a ton of struggles, from sleeping, to going out in public, to going back to work,” Matt said. “But we’ve pushed through. It gets easier to think about and talk about.”

Matt had a breakthrough recently watching the sunrise with his 2-year-old.

“It’s time to live in the here and now and not live in the past,” he said.

Stephanie said she knows her children need her to be strong, and that’s what keeps her going every day.

She’s been going to counseling, and connecting with other people who were at the event through Facebook support groups where survivors can share their stories and struggles and “find their hero.”

“It’s a way to come back together. Sometimes you feel like you are the only one going through this, but they went through the same thing,” Stephanie said.

She’s also been compelled to reach out to other Montanans who attended the event. She knows she can’t reach out to everyone but said if each community can be there for each other, it could make a real difference.

“We should try to come together at some point or at least exchange contact information because if you ever need someone to talk to, we are here. We are a phone call away. That’s how I feel I can help in the here and now.”

Stephanie also encourages others to seek counseling.

“No one should have to go through this alone,” she said. “It is devastating and your whole life and world is turned upside down.”

“I feel lost still. But each day you figure it out a little more. Some days take you back five steps. The healing process is just going to take time.”

Reporter Breeana Laughlin can be reached at 758-4441 or blaughlin@dailyinterlake.com.