An Indiana educator survived the mass shooting in Las Vegas -- and then a shooting at her school

By Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
June 10 at 3:29 PM

For eight months, Shelly Alexander has found herself on the verge of going to pieces whenever she hears loud noises — and for good reason.

The Noblesville, Ind., special education assistant was in a taxi near the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip when Stephen Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel on Oct. 1, killing 58 people and injuring 851.

Paddock used a bump-stock attachment that made his semiautomatic rifle fire nearly as rapidly as an automatic weapon — nine percussive bangs every second. By the end, authorities estimated, he had fired nearly 1,100 bullets. Alexander’s taxi was caught in the hail of bullets. None of them hit her, but she did not leave Las Vegas unscathed.

She goes to counseling regularly to deal with the trauma she experienced. And she’s constantly having a mental dialogue with herself whenever she hears fireworks or doors slamming or a car backfiring.

-snip-

So when she heard a loud commotion and the sound of people running at Noblesville West Middle School, where she works, on May 25, she figured the worry that suddenly overcame her was her body’s typically overcharged response. “I was just like, ‘Oh, it’s just kids [being loud] at the end of the year.’” She was wrong.

A 13-year-old student had excused himself from a class nearby and returned with two guns. The boy opened fire, shooting a 13-year-old classmate and a teacher — and putting Alexander in a small, unsought fraternity of innocent people who have survived two gun attacks.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/06/10/an-indiana-educator-survived-the-mass-shooting-in-las-vegas-and-then-a-shooting-at-her-school