We all say it’ll never happen to us. We always believe that we’ll be the exception. I used to think that, too.
But now my story has changed. I’m a survivor of a mass shooting — a sentence I never thought I’d say.
I’m originally from Dayton, Ohio, and graduated from the University of Dayton before moving out to Utah to pursue my master’s degree at Utah State University. Many of my friends and family still live in Dayton, so I was excited to visit home this past August.
August 3, 2019, began like any ordinary Saturday night. I was in Dayton’s Oregon District, an area of town known for its fantastic restaurants and bars, enjoying the night out with old friends.
At 1 a.m. on August 4, I experienced the mass shooting that took nine lives in just 32 seconds. I was near the back of a bar when a storm of people ran past me and out the back door. The music went quiet and all I could hear were screams and the non-stop sound of bullets firing just outside the bar.
The crowd of people blocked me from escaping out the back, so I sprinted into the bathroom to hide. Fifteen of us were piled into the small room, lying as close to the floor as possible. We could hear banging and crying on the other side of the door from people begging us to let them in. But there was no space left and opening the door could have exposed us all to the shooter. As hard as it was, we kept the door shut as an attempt to protect the 15 of us who were inside.
As I lay on the dirty bathroom bar floor, I watched my hair move up and down with each breath I took wondering if I was going to die there. Dayton Police were fortunately already on the scene and took down the gunman in under a minute, just seconds before he could enter the bar adjacent to the one I was hiding in. But in those 32 seconds, the gunman fired 41 shots, taking nine lives and injuring dozens.
My childhood neighbor, Logan Turner, was one of the victims. He was celebrating his 30th birthday with friends that evening.
We hear about these events in the news and never think that it could happen to us. I thought that too. During this 2020 legislative session, our Utah legislators have the ability to create safer communities for us. House Bill 229, known as the Extreme Risk Protection Order, also known as a “Red Flag Law” could help prevent tragedies like the one I experienced.
HB229 is crafted uniquely to protect and provide help to those who may be at extreme risk of harming themselves and/or others. The gunman who attacked my hometown had a track record of violence. He had a hit list, threatened to kill himself and others and stated that he was going to shoot up a bar on the University of Dayton campus. I believe this horrific event could have been avoided if a bill like HB 229 had existed in Ohio.
Please contact your representatives and ask them to support HB229 so that we can keep our family and friends safe and help prevent tragedies like this from occurring here in Utah. Let’s not wait until it’s too late.
Emily Skill
Emily Skill, Salt Lake City, was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, and is a graduate of Utah State University.
