How has it already been six years?
I’ll never forget the night of October 1, 2017. I was getting ready to go to bed when I saw a post from Luke Combs saying there had been a shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. From there, I spent hours constantly refreshing for updates, my heart breaking as the death toll climbed higher and higher.
Ultimately, 60 people were killed and over 800 were injured in the worst mass shooting in our country’s history.
The country music community rallied in the days and weeks following the tragedy, raising millions of dollars for the victims and their families, and tributes poured in from around the world for those affected by the senseless violence.
Today, on the 6th anniversary of the tragedy, Jason Aldean took some time to pay tribute to the victims of the shooting. Aldean was on stage performing as the headliner for the last night of the festival when the gunfire erupted.
And in Las Vegas, a memorial service for the victims of the tragedy featured a powerful moment when a survivor of the shooting took the stage to pay tribute to those who lost their lives.
Patrick Dalton Amico, a singer himself under the name Pat Dalton, was at the festival with his wife on that night six years ago. They managed to escape into the parking lot when the shooting began, and began loading people into his truck – including one with a bullet wound – to drive them away from the chaos that was unfolding.
Dalton still suffers with guilt from that night, wondering whether he could have done more to save lives, despite being a hero for his actions.
And today, Dalton took the stage at a memorial for those who were killed to pay tribute to the victims of that night.
As pictures of the 60 victims played behind him, Dalton played “Amazing Grace” in a powerful moment of remembrance of that horrible day.
While the wounds will never truly heal for those who were there that day, it was yet another emotional step towards finding peace in the sense of a tragedy that will never make sense.
