Seal Beach couple struggles to find their path after Las Vegas massacre
There are certain things that Lisa Wehring and Allen Snyder will never forget. Things they probably will never able to do so. Although, at times, they’d like to forget.
But on Oct. 1, the second anniversary of the Route 91 mass shooting in Las Vegas returns and so will many of the feelings and memories shared by the 22,000-plus people who were there. For Lisa and Allen, the harrowing experience of surviving that night haunts them. But in the two years since that night, they have begun to find a way back to normalcy.
It’s been a difficult, confusing and life-changing road back to some kind of normality. It’s been a long road back from Route 91, but the Seal Beach couple is beginning to take back their lives.
“I think we’re doing better, way better than we were the first year,” Allen said.
Lisa and Allen have been dating for five years. They recently moved into a new home in Seal Beach. They were introduced at a birthday party and suspect it was a planned attempt to pair them up. And it worked.
Lisa was living in the Newport Beach at the time and Allen, in Seal Beach. They found common interests, including a love of country music and going to live concerts. It was something they both enjoyed and did frequently. In 2017, they had hoped to go to Stagecoach, but were unable to do so. So, they decided to get tickets to the Route 91 Harvest Festival that had three days of concerts, with Jason Aldean headlining the final day.
It was just the two of them, but they made friends with other concert-goers at the event. They had seats on a VIP platform, that was raised above the ground level and a standing table for drinks and personal items.
They had attended all three days and had checked out of their room at the MGM on Sunday, expecting to wait for their early Monday flight at the airport. They had talked and danced with others at the show and enjoyed the weekend with each other.
“It was just a great time,” Lisa said.
Shortly after 10 p.m. on Sunday, as Aldean started his song, “When she calls me baby,” the festive event became a horrific scene, as a gunman opened fire from his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. The sound of the gunfire was confusing at first, thought to be firecrackers, or simply a malfunction of the sound equipment.
During the first shots, Allen said to one of their table mates, that it sounded like gunfire, but they brushed it off. But when the music stopped and the band fled the stage, the sound was much clearer.
“And then it just opened up, it was just automatic gunfire right when I started hearing it, I grabbed her (Lisa) and threw the table down,” Allen said.
He remembered the sounds had come from the side where Mandalay Bay was, so he pointed the tabletop in that direction and they took cover behind it. Chaos ensued, but they stayed put, expecting to hear return fire from the large amount of police at the event. But the confusion was everywhere. Allen remembers hearing people saying the shots were coming from a black truck on the street. Reports from the shooting indicated that it took police a few minutes to determine that the shots were coming from the hotel.
There was a pause in the shots and Allen again expected to hear shots from police in response. But none came. When the shots started up again, they were much closer to where they were taking cover. Allen and Lisa both remember the fffttt, fffttt sound of bullets cutting through the air above their heads. The ricochet sound of bullets hitting metal tent poles, wood bleacher parts and plastic tent covers.
“At that point I thought, ok, we can’t sit here on the ground and wait this thing out, we’ve got to move,” Allen said.
When the shots paused again, they made a move for the stairs. But with one set of stairs going towards the direction of the shots, the only exit left was bottlenecked and there was moment of extreme vulnerability as they were without cover. Eventually, they made it down the stairs, but Allen did not want to go out onto the street, as he was still unaware that the theory that the shots were coming from the street was inaccurate.
“It was pure mayhem, so many people just screaming, yelling and I was actually just losing my mind,” Lisa said.
They ran alongside a wall and found cover behind some vendor booths, behind a pillar. Suddenly, the back door to a bar opened and a man called for them to come inside. Inside they took shelter and Lisa and another woman began praying together.
Allen said Lisa had been making the low groaning sound. She didn’t really realize it, but Allen thought she was having trouble staying focused. He held her face and implored her to listen to him and stay with him and do what he said. Her reply was, “I am.”
Their minds were racing. Allen said he felt like they were going to find a way to get out safely, but they were both still very confused at the same time. Lisa suddenly realized that their phone and souvenirs were back where they had toppled the table for cover. Allen told her to wait there and he would go back and get them. It was Lisa who then told him “NO” and insisted that he not leaver her.
“Your mind is just not with you,” Lisa said of the confusion for both of them.
When a door on the other side of the bar opened, people poured out into the street. There was a convenience store nearby and they ran in that direction. Lisa said she saw a woman with blood running down her head but that was the only severe injury she witnessed.
They worked their way back to the MGM, where they had left their luggage. Allen went to get the bags because he needed his inhaler. When he returned, chaos ensued again. For reasons they still don’t know, the people in the casino began to run screaming toward the lobby. It looked like a wave of people, they said. They again took cover behind the check-in area, where the bags were stored.
Allen found a phone on the ground by his bags. They used it to try and contact their kids. Between the two of them, they have five adult age children. The youngest is now Lisa’s 16-year-old daughter. She was spending the weekend with a friend’s family. She was the one Lisa was most concerned for.
“My main concern was, my youngest daughter was spending the night at a friend’s place, and I wanted to make sure she was taken care of,” Lisa said.
But with modern phone contact lists, they admit they did not know their kids’ numbers by heart. They opened the phones Facebook app and used it to try and message their kids. It took some time, given the kids did not know the man on the Facebook account, but they eventually were able to get some of them word that they were ok.
They left the phone, but before they did, Lisa friend requested the owner, Chris. They sat for a while in an eerily empty casino, before deciding to leave the hotel. They walked through the large parking garage to the street behind the resort, and found a lone cab sitting in the middle of the street.
The driver had been allowed to go back there because he lived in the area and was going home. But he agreed to take them to the airport. They were able to get onto their regular Monday morning flight home.
Once they arrived back home, the road back began. But theirs, like any survivor of a horrific mass shooting or attack, is a path through unchartered waters. At first, they were glued to reports on television, looking for answers. The gunman had taken his own life before being captured, so a gaping hole of information will never come out. And that, as much as anything, haunts the couple.
“We’ll never get answers … we don’t have an answer and everybody has different theories, but it just doesn’t add up and it’s still just like a horrible punch to the gut that you’re left with,” Lisa said.
A grief counselor, who happened to be a friend of the family that Lisa’s daughter was staying with, had given them her card and offered to help if they needed it. They thought they were ok, but as time passed, they realized they did need to talk with a trained professional.
About a month after the shooting, Lisa and Allen decided they needed to see the venue again. They drove to Las Vegas. The site was still under investigation. White circles marked every bullet hole that could be identified. They went to the top of a parking structure to get a view of the site. They may not have realized it at the time, but they soon did come to terms with their need to seek help.
“It really screws with your brain when something like that happens,” Allen said.
At the one-year anniversary, the couple spent the day alone. They walked out to the beach and read, to themselves, the names of the 58 people who were killed. They’ve joined survivor groups on social media and Lisa decorated a tile that was eventually added to a Healing Garden Park in Las Vegas.
They reunited with Chris, the owner of the phone they used, about a year after the shooting. He had been shot in the shoulder, but survived. He had been trying to use the phone one-handed, when the chaos inside MGM began. He fled, leaving the phone unlocked, a fortuitous incident that helped Lisa and Allen.
The couple have gotten back into their lives as best they can. They love concerts and refuse to give them up. But there’s an anxiety that has to be overcome. They went to Stagecoach this year, and had fun, but Lisa admits to feeling a little claustrophobic and needing to get outside the crowd. Allen said they go into any crowded venue and they are checking where the exits are located.
There’s a new normal for them, and after speaking with counselors, it may be that way for quite some time. Lisa said one of the counselors she spoke to, told her it’s just something they are likely to have to live with for a while.
“She said, ‘every anniversary, it’s going to be with you, five years, ten years,’ and that was so poignant to me because I never even thought about that, like in the future, this has a way of kind of detouring you,” Lisa said.
They admit that some family members have asked, why think about it? Why ask questions to which they will never have satisfactory answers? Why remember, why not just try to forget?
But for them, they can’t forget. They can’t forget the sound of bullets whizzing by, which Allen said sound surprisingly similar to the bullet sound effects in movies. They can’t forget the burning metal smell of bullets hitting tent poles and light posts, or the exact moment in the Aldean song, when the bullets began pouring into the venue.
“It makes you wonder, the luck of it all, I guess,” Allen said.
And yet, there is also a part of them that doesn’t want to forget. That feels an obligation to remember. Remember the people whose lives were lost and the people who helped them, even the ones they never met face to face. Lisa said they went into a concert and came out completely different people. But they have 22,000 new family members who shared that forced change. So, they all move forward together.
“We’re forever stuck, that’s kind of how it feels sometimes and it’s just something that you have to deal with and also, I think it’s important to not forget,” Lisa said.
