“We started seeing people fall and being hit by the bullets,” said Williford, who lives with her wife, Amy Stuven, in Miamisburg.
What started as a fun trip with friends turned into a war zone-like scene on the third day of the music festival. In the nearly seven years following the tragedy, Williford has since gone through an intensive outpatient program at Kettering Health Behavioral Medical Center in order to learn ways to cope with the trauma of what she saw and experienced.
She recommends getting mental health treatment to others who have experienced trauma and need help recovering.
The mass shooting occurred on Oct. 1, 2017 when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd of concertgoers on the Las Vegas Strip, firing more than 1,000 rounds from his vantage point in Mandalay Bay hotel rooms on the 32nd floor.
Williford, when she realized what was happening on the ground, covered her friend with her body, she said.
“As soon as it would stop, we got up and tried to run,” Williford said.
The exits weren’t clear, she said, especially during the ensuing panic, so people started climbing the fences around the venue. Williford wasn’t able to make it over the fence, and she ended up getting trampled as she turned around.
“At that time, I didn’t feel any of that pain,” said Williford, who ended up getting a knee replacement because of those injuries.
Still in the festival area, Williford, who was previously a nurse, started helping victims when the volleys of gunfire would stop.
“As with a lot of people, we would run, try to go and render any first aid that we could,” Williford said. “I used my belt as a tourniquet on someone’s leg that had been shot in the leg. We did a lot of CPR and life-saving efforts as best we could.”
Numerous people had tried to go to the back of the venue, but no ambulances were able to get to them because the area wasn’t safe, she said.
“People were pulling up in personal vehicles, and we were loading people into the backs of trucks, into Lyfts, into Ubers, whoever would be willing to pull up and take the injured,” Williford said.
Williford ended up riding in one vehicle to a hospital so she could keep holding pressure on a victim’s wound who had been shot in the abdomen, she said.
Stuven, Williford’s now wife, had been listening to some of that unfold over the phone at around 1:20 a.m. local time as Williford had tried to call her to let her know what was happening.
“I must have...forgot that I had dialed her. And I could hear her yelling, ‘What’s going on? What’s going on?’” Williford said.
Hearing what was happening was frightening, said Stuven, who couldn’t make sense of what was going on at first.
“I could hear a lot of movement, and then I realized there was a lot of screaming going on,” Stuven said.
Williford told Stuven that she was okay before having to hang up to focus on the victim in the car and getting him into Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas. The hospital later went into lockdown for a few hours.
“It was hours before I was able to get back to the hotel room,” Williford said.
In addition to her knee injury, Williford ended up with glass in her leg and bruised over her entire body, but she did not get shot. More than 400 people were injured by the gunfire and more than 860 were injured during the panic to escape.
Excluding the gunman, the first official death count was 58 victims, but that was increased to 60 after two women later died from complications from their wounds, one in November 2019 and one in May 2020.
After this experience, Williford dealt with severe PTSD that made it hard for her to live her daily life. Stuven suggested therapy and getting help, so Williford started therapy within a few days of getting home and later went to Kettering Health Behavioral Medical Center.
“My wife, she’s so smart. She knew that there were going to be things that I was going to remember and have trouble with,” Williford said.
Williford went through the intensive outpatient program at the center twice, connecting with others who had survived their own trauma. She learned techniques, such as grounding techniques, which helped her cope with anxiety and flashbacks.
It was difficult to confront those memories and her trauma, but it was worth it, she said.
“The bravest thing you can do is show up,” Williford said.
The intensive outpatient program particularly helped Williford with not feeling alone, since she was so far removed from the other survivors of the Las Vegas mass shooting.
“I felt support from everyone there,” Williford said. “It changed my life.”
When the Oregon District shooting happened in 2019 in Dayton, Williford and Stuven went to rallies following that tragedy. They recommended the intensive outpatient program or seeking mental health help in general to people they knew who had witnessed the incident.
Through her healing journey, Williford went back to Las Vegas on the first anniversary of the shooting and held her wedding with Stuven there. They wanted to have other memories, ones full of love and joy, to associate with that date and place instead of the 2017 mass shooting.
“We got married on that day so that we could change the meaning for us,” Williford said.
They also went to events in the area held in remembrance of the tragedy, and they connected with other survivors from that day.
“They were survivors, Route 91 survivors, at the wedding with us and we had only met them two days before,” Stuven said.
Williford received a March of Dimes Nurse of the Year award for her actions during the shooting, but she struggles with the word “hero,” knowing all of the other people she saw jump into action to help victims who had been shot or wounded.
“I was just one of many, many, many, many people that helped that night,” Williford said.
Williford continues to see a therapist regularly to help her process those events. She praised her wife and her daughter, Phoebe Hole, for the ongoing support they’ve given her, as well as the help she’s received from mental health professionals.
“They’ve just been there the whole time. I’ve been very fortunate in that way,” Williford said.
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