North Texas Survivors Of Las Vegas Massacre Return Home
DALLAS (CBS11) - The airport reunions can't fully capture the relief when loved ones return from a Las Vegas country music festival that turned into a massacre.
"Just to see it on TV and have it hit home like that... have your wife and daughter there and not be able to do anything, that's the hardest part," said Scott Nunez of McKinney as he hugged his wife and daughter at the Love Field baggage carousel and then wrapped his arms around them again. Second hugs just seemed in order, because they're home safe.
Nunez, like most of the country, could only watch in horror as news spread of a well-planned attack on the concertgoers that by Monday afternoon had left 59 dead and more than 500 wounded.
"He would stop and reload and it would happen again," said Taylor Nunez. "Everybody was down for awhile, and then when he would stop, everybody would start running and trampling, and it was chaos"
Taylor says the automatic gunfire seemed to sweep the crowd in waves.
"There was one man next to me that got shot in the leg right next to me," said Taylor's mother, Monnique Nunez. In the midst of the horror, she remembers heroes stepping up even when they couldn't get up.
"He was trying to make sure we were covered, trying to protect us. During a break in the shots, he couldn't get up... but he told us all to get up and go and just start running."
Somehow everyone in their group of relatives and friends managed to avoid the bullets, but that doesn't mean they carry no scars.
"Seeing the wounded ones and then the next morning... just seeing, still seeing bodies on the street, bodies covered in sheets, and I think that's when it really kind of sank in: the aftermath,"" explained Monnique, when asked about the images that she has been unable to erase.
"Bad deal, bad deal," said Scott.
So when Monnique and Taylor say they are glad to be home, the words carry the weight of knowing there are 59 others who should have been able to say the same.
