Natalie Grumet
Natalie Grumet
Route 91, Las Vegas, NV
On October 1st, 2017, 10 years after being diagnosed with Breast Cancer at the age of 27, Natalie was shot in the face during a mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas.
58 people were killed and
867 injured in Las Vegas that night.
The shooting was on the last day of the music festival with the main headliner Jason Aldean. I remember waking up and looking at my phone and smiling because it was October 1st. I don't know if you know, I'm a breast cancer survivor.
It just happened to be at the 10-year mark of being in remission for me. October 2007, I was 27. I had my port placed in my chest to receive chemotherapy. I had my lymph nodes removed on my left side to test for metastases. I also went through a cycle of IVF to retrieve my eggs to make embryos with my husband to freeze to preserve my fertility. And I received my first chemotherapy, and I lost my hair all of the month of October. By Halloween, I was completely bald. And so, obviously, October just brings back a lot of memories.
See October 1st, I was like, wow, it's 10 years since all of those things happened, a whole decade, and in the cancer world, to be 10 years out is huge. I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer with a poor prognosis. I didn't even know if I'd reach my 30th birthday. So to wake up, you know, at this music festival, one of my favorite singers, it was just very emotional.
I had no idea what that night had in store, but my husband and I actually went and got a couple's massage that morning, and we were driving there, and I was like, wow, I can't believe it's been 10 years since we went through all of these things. We had a rough 10 years, and we just kind of reflected on all of the things we had gone through — all of the setbacks, all of the times the odds weren't in my favor.
It ended up being this pep talk in my head that I attribute to saving my life that night and in the days to come. I needed that reminder of how far I had come and all the things I had overcome because later that night when I was shot, I always say that conversation kind of hit my heart like this jolt of electricity of courage. And I just remember laying there thinking, I'm not dying here tonight if I have anything to do with it. I did not survive cancer in the last 10 years to die here tonight.
THE CONCERT
My husband actually wasn't wanting to go [to the concert]. He was kind of tapped out. So we had dinner that night at Mandalay Bay, and he walked me down, and I actually have this picture of us standing at the bottom, having no idea that 32 floors above us was the serial killer about to go on this massive shooting spree.
I went in the venue and met my girlfriends that were already there, and we were standing front stage, which later they said was the kill zone because that was where the first shots were so concentrated. Jason was on stage singing, and we heard these pop, pop, pop sounds.
I remember looking at my friend, and she kind of was like, “fireworks”. I remember thinking that doesn't sound like fireworks. And the next thing I knew, there felt like this explosion to the left side of my face, and it felt like my face was on fire, just like the worst pain in my life. I didn't really know what happened. Jason was still singing for a few seconds. I remember not understanding what was happening until the sound of automatic gunfire registered in my head. Everything kind of slowed down for a second.
Once everything kind of sped up again and I heard the sounds of automatic gunfire, I realized, “oh my gosh, we're being shot at and I was just shot in the face.” But the rounds just kept coming, and it was so hard to decide — do I stay down and take cover? Do I run? Every time there'd be a pause, the chaos around me was so intense, the crying and people screaming for help. I remember when I was down on the ground, there was a person behind me that had literally given me the shirt off her back to hold to my face to help with the bleeding.
And that's when I remembered the conversation with my husband — you're a fighter, you have to get out of this venue. I knew I couldn't fall apart. I didn't have that luxury until I got to my husband, and that's something I just kept repeating. “Don’t fall apart. You have to keep it together.”
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE SHOOTING
When I stood up for the first time, in a pause of the gunfire, and saw what was around me, I think that's something I'll never get over. Seeing those people who I knew weren't going to go home. They weren't going to go home to their parents or their spouse or their kids. Having to run past them was so hard and things that people should never have to see or experience.
We ran through another fence that had been pushed through, and everybody was just pouring onto the streets. There was the back entrance to the Tropicana, the employee entrance. So I kind of followed the crowds through there, and obviously didn't know what I looked like or how severe my injury was. I knew that it was significant, and I knew that I needed to get help. But I'll never forget as we walked through the Tropicana at this point, people that have been at the concert, the looks on their faces as they took in my appearance.
I was fortunate because there were so many guardian angels in my path that night — the girl that took off her shirt and held it to my face — Leanne, she's an incredible person. And when we got to the Tropicana, there had been an orthopedic surgeon, his wife, who's a surgical nurse, a probation officer, and an off-duty EMT that were all at the concert. And now they were helping people. And so I'm like, in my darkest hour, God assembled this team of medical professionals. I couldn't ask for more competent people to be there for me.
Laura. She literally saved my life on 10/1/17
The orthopedic surgeon and his wife, who's a nurse, they've become like family to us. Laura was taking care of me, and she went into an ambulance and actually raided the ambulance to start an IV on me because she wanted me to have the best chance of surviving when I got to the hospital. It's all this chaos and she's just like this angel starting an IV.
I had somebody call my husband. I always joke we've been married so long I know his number by heart. At that point, the ambulance was there, and they knew where they were going to route us. He was like, “I will get to you. I will find you. Don't worry, I'm coming to you. I will find you.” I just clung to those words. I felt so alone and scared, and I just needed him. I remember in my heart just holding on, knowing he was coming.
5 SURGERIES IN 20 DAYS
Jason [my husband] got to the hospital, and at first, they couldn't find me. As they were rounding a corner, he said he saw this person in a bed, and their clothes were partially cut off. They were covered in blood, and it looked like a grenade had exploded from the inside out of their face. They were intubated, and he recognized the braid that I had done in my hair that night. That's how he identified me and found me. He was given the news that I needed an emergency blood transfusion. I lost a third of my blood supply.
It was a miracle that I got there in time. I really don't think I'd be alive if I hadn't made it there when I did, my airway had started to close. My jaw was completely shattered. I had no jawbone basically connecting anymore. My chin was fractured in half, and the major nerves that run along the face were completely destroyed.
I had 5 surgeries in 20 days. The fifth surgery was actually an emergency surgery. The day of my discharge, I all of a sudden started experiencing a lot of pain and pressure in my face.
At that point, I graduated from being intubated to a tracheotomy. So I had a trach for a week and a half. And then, once I passed my swallow test, they were able to remove the trach, and at this point, my jaw was wired shut. Also, I was paralyzed on the left side. So I'm kind of dealing with all these things trying to communicate, trying to tell the nurse something's wrong.
My last surgery had been off for a couple of days, and they thought I was good to go. What they think happened was I started to internally bleed into my neck from being on the blood thinners. I think it just magnified that you could be in the best hospital with the best care and the best physicians and the best nurses, and these things can still go wrong. There's no “you survived the shooting, you're good now, you're going to live like everything's fine”. There was never a sense of that — in the beginning especially.
It's just kind of reiterated that in my head, I'm not safe, these injuries are life-threatening. So that delayed my discharge day, obviously. I ended up having a six-hour surgery that day.
A LIFETIME OF RECOVERY
My biggest surgery was in March 2018. They basically re-rebuilt my jaw. And that's why I had to have my jaw wired shut a second time. After the shooting, I had three huge titanium plates in my face, just holding my face together, basically. That was a temporary solution, and the goal was always to rebuild my jaw the best they could.
So in March, they did a titanium mesh plate custom-made for me. It's actually really incredible, the advancements in medicine. So they built a titanium mesh plate, and then they took bone marrow from my hip and they mixed it with a compound called BMP. Basically, what that does is it produces the compound that grows the bone. They did a nerve graft at that time too. They took a nerve from my ankle. It's called the sural nerve. And they transplanted it in my face to connect my nerve. And the idea was to hopefully give me more sensation and movement. I was in the hospital for about four days.
The shooting and me getting shot happened in a second. The shooting lasted 11 minutes. But now it's a lifetime of recovery — physically, mentally, emotionally. One of the lifelong impacts that I'm dealing with is the nerve damage to my face. I have a condition called trigeminal neuralgia. I'm still dealing with it.
The bullet basically exploded into my face. Another lifetime impact is how I would typically be monitored for my type of cancer is MRI S. I can't have MRI S now because I have so much shrapnel in my face. So that was stolen from me, the surveillance in my cancer.
I also got shot in the hand, mostly shrapnel in my left hand. There's just so many bullet fragments, you could see them on X-rays and CTs in the ligaments and skin and tissue — small, tiny, microscopic pieces. It came back that I had toxic lead poisoning. So that's just another thing to monitor.
I'll never be out of pain. It’s something I've had to come to realize, and that's really hard to know. Like you're never going to be physically pain-free.
GOING HOME
For 16 days post-shooting, Natalie couldn't speak due to her trach tube and her jaw being wired shut. Natalie used this board as a way to communicate.
When I finally did go home, I just felt like this completely different person. I had left in September, very carefree and healthy for the most part. Now I was returning, and it was the end of October, and I had a feeding tube plate to my stomach because I can no longer take food or drinks by mouth in the beginning.
So, I had a G tube that my husband was having to manage my two feeds and my care. I had this very open wound on my neck where my [tracheotomy tube] was. I had difficulty talking because of being paralyzed and my jaw wired shut. And then, obviously, a lot of surgical wounds on my face.
There was obviously this comfort of being home, my dog greeted me, and my family was all there. My friends and a few of my coworkers had gone to my house and decorated it really pretty. They made a basic, almost medical bed on my couch because they knew I'd be spending a lot of time there and like a side table with all the things I would need and fresh flowers.
And one of them did like a beautiful pumpkin thing on my table and like a big poster, just trying to make me feel comfortable. I was obviously so happy to be home with all of the comfort items, but it was also scary because I didn't feel safe.
Everything was very different. I didn't trust people. Every noise was very intense for me. I was a different person when I came home, and that was really hard.
GOING BACK TO WORK
I did go back to work. I worked as an ultrasound tech. After the shooting, to be enclosed in a dark room with the door closed and no windows and not really being able to hear so much going on and to have to concentrate, that's a lot of pressure. An environment I used to love and thrive in all of a sudden became very difficult to manage.
I knew medically I was going to be pulled back out of work. One of the screws started to come out, and I started to have a lot of indentation, where I lost a lot of skin and tissue. So they needed to do a couple of surgeries.
And then, on one of the days that I wasn't there, a patient came into our suite and basically said that he was going to come back and shoot everybody. And so my manager called, and I just lost it for obvious reasons. It was pretty significant, they had the police on our floor for a couple days after, they believe he was casing the building. He was arrested. It was a very serious threat and, to me, my worst nightmare.
So after that, it was just hard. I got pulled out medically, and then to go back was too much.
I’m a different person, forever changed. To go to bed every night in pain after being in pain, knowing I'm going to wake up tomorrow and I'm going to be in pain. I mean, that's really hard. When I went through cancer, it's like, it's just bad luck. But the shooting, somebody did this to me. Like, there's a part where you're just this victim of somebody's choice to do this senseless act of violence and hurt. I'll never be the same wife. I'll never be the same daughter, the same friend.
I share that with my husband because I'm not his same wife. He loves me unconditionally. I'm very lucky our marriage is strong. He's my best friend. But I don't show up as the same person that he married because of somebody else's choice.
RECOVERY
There's two big things that you have to look at, there's the physical recovery, and then there's the emotional recovery. In my case, I needed so many surgeries that first year and second year and into the third year and had complications on some of my surgeries that it was like every time I did some healing, I'd go in for surgery, and it would just be like ripping off that band-aid and re-traumatizing me.
I want to say that I showed up brave to each surgery, but I didn't. I did my best to prepare, but I'll be completely transparent: some of those times where I'd be getting admitted, and that PTSD would just kick in, I'd be in hysterics. Jason would try to be calming me, they even brought some of the ICU nurses down to try to talk to me and just help me relax, and it was just impossible. Once the mind gets going, there's just a part where you can tell yourself, “I'm safe. I'm OK.” and the body and mind are just like, “nope”.
I think giving yourself grace is so important. It's OK. You're not always going to show up as this invincible warrior, that's not realistic. It's a recovery from a gunshot wound to the face. It's going to be messy. It's going be a hard recovery.
It was a lot to work through, Jason set up therapy for me right away, and we were really lucky. A therapist actually volunteered her time to come to our house and meet with me there because she knew I just wasn't in the condition to be going into an office and sitting for an hour.
I have a new therapist I've been seeing the last couple of years, and she's helped me so much. I can manage the triggers. If there's a shooting in the news at a grocery store and I don't want to go to the grocery store that week, I can do a pick up where they just put it right in my trunk, or I can even have it delivered to my front door if I need to.
SURVIVING “UNSURVIVABLE” MOMENTS
From the beginning, I wasn't afraid to talk about it. I knew that shutting down wasn't the answer, even though that was hard. When I went through cancer, I met all these incredible fellow young breast cancer survivors, and they were like this oxygen to me, like I couldn't breathe at the time. And it really magnified the importance of finding people that had been through similar situations.
They're like the light at the end of the tunnel, right? They show you I went through this too, and I'm still standing, and these are the things that helped me.
I don't think that my ability to cope and survive these unsurvivable moments, I don't think I'm unique. I think everybody has it within them to do that. And I think being able to find that within yourself is the greatest gift that you give yourself because nobody can do that for you.
And you know, that sense of whatever comes my way I'm going to handle — that mindset is so huge, and that's what I want to share with people and give people hope because it's helped me. People go through horrible things every day: car accidents, medical emergencies, mass shootings, and still show up.
I'm actually starting a podcast, it's called The Grit of Trauma. It's a coming soon thing. So people can follow me on my Instagram. I'm sure once we get a launch date and everything like that, I'll be posting about it. The idea is to offer hope to people — real stories, real situations, and experiences — let people know they're not alone in what they're experiencing.
I'm doing it with my therapist, she specializes in trauma. Our goal is to be a resource for people. We’re going to have very real raw conversations and also follow that up with how you get through that.
What are everyday tips that you can do? What are some resources? Who can you call, what are websites that we recommend, maybe books, support groups, things like that. We're going to have guest speakers. We're really excited.
THE ANTIDOTE TO HELPLESSNESS
Part of the depression and anxiety and PTSD is you feel helpless and hopeless, and those are some of the worst combinations of emotions. You have to remind yourself you're not helpless and you're not hopeless, there's always hope.
I will never give up on working on myself, whether it's through therapy or group support or just being with my girlfriends on a girls' day. Or going out on a date with my husband to a crowded place. There's a gratitude there because there's 58 people that night that didn't get a chance to rebuild their lives. And I do think about them every day. I'm having a bad day, and I'm in a lot of pain, but I'm still here, I'm still alive, and I'm still living a life with my husband and my family and my friends and 58 people can't say that. 58 families can't do that. And I have to recognize that even though my life is different than I would choose for myself, I'm still here.
And the helplessness part, I think people have to remember that action is the antidote to helplessness. For me, I find a lot of healing in volunteering. I sit on a board for a breast cancer nonprofit. I sit on the board for a nonprofit called Country Strong that gets people to get better after mass shootings, you know, different events to enjoy through music.
I just have to take each day as it comes with the shooting aftermath and the pain and the emotional recovery. There's some days that are amazing and wonderful and I'm able to manage my pain really well and feel good and do all the things I want to do. And then there's days where I'm a mess emotionally that I don't want to leave my house. I think it's important to feel the things that you need to anger, grief, sadness, shame, whatever that is for you — perfectly normal, fine emotions. And I just say, don't stay there. Feel it, experience it, do what you need to process it, but those aren't places to stay, and that's something I tell myself a lot.
After this, I'm going to probably go crash on my couch. But hopefully, in a few hours, I'll feel better, and I'll get to take my new puppy out for a nice walk and watch the sunset. You just have to have that balance in life.
