WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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- I was shot about 16 years ago,

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and I still feel the effects from that day

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in every aspect of my life.

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(slow, dramatic music)

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I was working as a camp
counselor when I was

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16 years old at the North
Valley Jewish Community Center.

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One day, after playing capture the flag,

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I was walking in with one
of my favorite campers.

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We decided to walk to the
front of the building,

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because that's where the
rest of my campers were,

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who were all five and six-year-old kids,

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and as we walked to the
front of the building,

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a man walked in

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carrying a semi-automatic uzi replica gun,

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and started shooting,

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and he shot off about
70 rounds of ammunition

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into the building.

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He shot me first, and then
he just started spraying.

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He showed up on a day when there were

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a lot of children there,

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about 350 kids at the
Jewish Community Center.

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And so I grabbed James
and I ran into a classroom

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that was right in front of us,

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and there were a bunch of little kids,

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five and six-years-old in that room

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with my co-counselors, and
I was covered in blood,

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and we still heard shooting outside.

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Bang, bang, bang.

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The campers all looked
up at me and kept saying,

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'What's all over Mindy,
what's all over Mindy?'

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There happened to be an emergency exit

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in that one room that we went into.

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We ran outside.

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There was a glass sliding door behind us,

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and he saw us running and
shot through the glass door,

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and the glass exploded behind us.

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I had lost a lot of blood at that point,

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and couldn't continue running,

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so we closed our eyes and played dead

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until we heard sirens.

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(sirens)

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And to this day, I still
have quite a bit of shrapnel

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inside my leg,

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and it's a constant reminder
of what I went through.

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The thing that I remember most is

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when you breathe in, you
feel air inside your lungs,

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but you've never felt air anywhere else

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inside your body, and immediately after

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the bullets passed through me,

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I remember feeling invisible,

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because there was air running through me

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that I had never felt before,

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and that's the instant that I knew

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something, a, wasn't
right, b, I had been shot,

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and the moment where I
started thinking about death.

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He shot three five-year-old kids,

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myself, who was 16 at the time,

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and a 65-year-old woman
who was the receptionist.

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The ones that weren't shot,

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they are, you know, in their 20s now,

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and are continuing to have
horrific nightmares about

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this bad man with a gun, coming in,

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trying to take their lives away.

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(slow, sad music)

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A year later, I tried
to go away to college,

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and I had a complete breakdown

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within the first six days of being there.

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A kid walked down the
hall with a Nerf gun,

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and he was just, you know,
having fun, laughing,

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and shooting everybody with Nerf balls,

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and the second the Nerf
ball hit me, I broke down.

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They put me in a psych ward of a hospital,

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and I felt crazy.

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So, I typically have a
panic attack every time

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I see a mass shooting.

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Virginia Tech, immediately
after I had a panic attack.

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Sandy Hook, instantly panic attack.

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And I know, moving
forward, I will continue

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to have the reactions like I do.

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What scares me is not having the reaction.

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It scares me when we become numb.

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People always tell me that
I was in the wrong place

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at the wrong time, but, in reality,

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I was in the right
place at the right time.

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I was 16, you know, I was
working with my little kids,

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I was protecting my kids

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and our future as a society,

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and so how dare you tell
me I was in the wrong place

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at the wrong time.

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He was in the wrong
place at the wrong time.

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I think it happened to me for a reason.

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I don't think there are a lot of people

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that could've handled what happened to me

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as well as I have.

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I have definitely suffered emotionally,

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I continue to suffer.

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I'm 33, I'm married, I own a home,

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I live in a wonderful, wonderful city,

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and I couldn't be happier,

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and had I not been shot,

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all of those things probably
wouldn't necessarily

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have happened to me.

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But, yeah, I would take it away.

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I don't put this on anybody.

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But if it could've happened to anybody,

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I am glad it happened to me,

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because nobody deserves to
go through that kind of pain.

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(slow, dramatic music)