See the Powerful Memorial Tattoos Las Vegas Shooting Survivors Have Gotten
Some of the survivors of the mass shooting in Las Vegas on Oct. 1 decided to memorialize that day with permanent ink, and they're turning to social media to share the messages behind their new tattoos.
Jason Aldean was partway through his headlining set on the closing night of the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas when a lone gunman opened fire into the crowd from his hotel room overlooking the audience, killing at least 58 people and wounding nearly 500 others in an 11-minute rampage before killing himself with a gunshot to the head. The shooting is the worst in modern American history, and authorities still remain puzzled as to the motive.
As everyone who was in Las Vegas on that terrible night tries to find ways to move forward, a number of survivors have turned to tattoo artists to capture their thoughts and memorialize the impact of that day in a way that they will keep with them forever.
One Instagram user named Michael shared a picture of the festival's logo inside a circle, including the date of the tragedy and adorned by a rose. He will carry that reminder on his left bicep of how lucky he was, as well as those who were lost.
"We will never forget," he writes simply, accompanied by the hashtags #route91harvest #vegastrong and #countrystrong. Click on the video at the top of the page to see some of the various tattoos from the survivors of the Las Vegas mass shooting.
The Victims of the Las Vegas Shooting
Another user named Alexis was at the concert along with her mother and some friends when the shooting started.
"I put a permanent reminder on my body to constantly remind myself that it so easily could've been me that was killed," she writes to accompany her tattoo of the Route 91 logo along with the shooting date and the Vegas skyline. "I don't know how or why I wasn't but not a day will ever go by that I'm not thankful to be alive."
Several other survivors also shared variations on the Route 91 logo and date, while one poster shared a large and very vivid floral tattoo emblazoned with the date and the legend, "Country Strong."
"This is a day I will never forget," she writes. "This day changed me in so many ways, both good and bad, but I have hope that one day I will be able to live a normal life again and heal from this traumatic event. Forever thankful for the life I was given."
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