A year after Super Bowl parade shooting, trauma freeze gives way to turmoil for survivors
Emily Tavis was on a first date in December when she looked up and realized they were driving past the downtown Kansas City, Missouri, intersection where a bullet ripped through her leg at last year’s Super Bowl victory parade.
“Oh f—,” Tavis said, bewildering her date.
She lives 35 miles away in Leavenworth, Kansas, and hadn’t yet returned to Union Station, where the mass shooting happened. She felt like crying. Or maybe it was a panic attack. She held up a finger signaling to her date that she needed a moment. That’s when it hit him, too.
“Oh crap, I didn’t even realize,” he said, and kept driving in silence.
Tavis sucked in her tears until the station was out of view.
“So anyway,” she said aloud, while thinking to herself, “way to go. Panic attack, first date.”
A year after the Feb. 14 shooting that killed one and injured at least 24 people, the survivors and their families are still reeling. Relationships have strained. Parents are anxious about their children. The generous financial support and well wishes that poured through in early days have now dried up. And they’re ambivalent about the team they all root for; as the Chiefs moved on to another Super Bowl, many wondered why their beloved team hasn’t acknowledged what they have all been going through.
A Trip Back to Union Station
Tavis isn’t the only survivor to have found herself unintentionally back at Union Station in the year since the shooting. Kids had field trips to Science City, located inside the station. Follow-up doctor visits were often on nearby Hospital Hill. An October dinner organized for survivors by a local faith-based group was less than a mile away, prompting one young survivor to decline the invitation.
Tavis had planned to return to Union Station as part of her healing process. She thought she would go on the one-year mark to have a moment alone to feel whatever emotions swept over her there.
Maybe God was showing her she was ready by placing her back there unexpectedly, her therapist told her. Maybe. But she didn’t feel ready in that moment.
Trauma Changes Who We Are
Gooch Sr. hasn’t worked since the parade. His job required standing for 10-hour shifts four days a week, but he couldn’t walk for months after a bullet shattered a bone in his foot and it slowly fused back together. He hoped to go back to work in July. But his foot didn’t heal correctly and he had surgery in August, followed by weeks of recovery.
He feels good walking now and can run short distances without pain. But he doesn’t know if he’ll ever play football again, a mainstay of his life since he can remember. He played safety for the semiprofessional Kansas City Reapers and, before the parade, the 38-year-old was considering making the 2024 season his last as a player.
“A lot more than football has been stolen from me in this last year. Like my whole life has been stolen from me,” Gooch Sr. said. “I really hate that part of it.”
‘I Did the Best I Could’
Every day before Jason Barton goes to work, he asks his wife, Bridget, if he should stay home with her.
She’s said yes enough that he’s out of paid time off. Jason, who’s survived cancer and a heart attack, had to take unpaid leave in January when a bad case of the flu put him in the hospital. That’s real love, Bridget said with tearful eyes, sitting with Jason and her 14-year-old daughter, Gabriella, in their home in Osawatomie, Kansas.
Bridget has connected with the mother of another girl injured in the shooting. They’ve exchanged texts and voicemails throughout the year. It’s nice to have someone to talk to who gets it, Bridget said. They’re hoping to get the girls together to build a connection as well.
Except for a trip to therapy once a week, Bridget doesn’t leave the house much anymore. It can feel like a prison, she said, but she’s too scared to leave. “It’s my own internal hell,” she said. She keeps thinking about that bullet slug that lodged in her backpack. What if she’d been standing differently? What if they’d left 10 seconds earlier? Would things be different?
A Post-it note in her kitchen reminds her: “I’m safe. Gabriella is safe. I did the best I could.”
She carries a lot of guilt. About Jason staying home. About not leaving the house, even to see her grandkids. About wanting the family to go to the parade in the first place. At the same time, she knows she kind of thrived in the chaos after the shooting, taking charge of her daughter, talking to the police. It’s confusing.
Resilience
One evening last October, survivors gathered with their families at a Mexican restaurant in downtown Kansas City.
Some came dressed in their Sunday best, some in red football jerseys. All ages, toddlers to 70-somethings, some from Missouri, some from Kansas. Some spoke only Spanish, some only English. Most of the two dozen people had never met before. But as they talked, they discovered the shooting that binds them also gave them a common language.
Two young boys realized they’d tossed a football during the jubilation before the violence erupted. A woman in her early 70s named Sarai Holguin remembered watching them play on that warm February day. After a blessing and dinner, Holguin, who was shot in the knee and has had four surgeries, stood to address the room.
“I was the first victim taken to the medical tent,” she said in Spanish, her words translated by a relative of another survivor. She saw everything, she explained, as, one by one, more survivors were brought to the tent for treatment, including Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a 43-year-old mother who was killed that day.
Yet in that tragedy, Holguin saw the beauty of people helping one another.
“This showed us that humanity is still alive, that love is still alive. There is a word called ‘resilience,’” Holguin said, the translator stumbling to understand the last word, as people in the audience caught it and shouted it out. “Resilience.”
“This word helps us overcome the problems we face,” Holguin said. “To try to put the tragic moment we all lived behind us and move on, we must remember the beautiful moments.”
Conclusion
A year after the Super Bowl parade shooting, the survivors and their families are still reeling. The generous financial support and well wishes that poured through in early days have now dried up. And they’re ambivalent about the team they all root for; as the Chiefs moved on to another Super Bowl, many wondered why their beloved team hasn’t acknowledged what they have all been going through.
FAQs
Q: What happened during the Super Bowl parade shooting?
A: On Feb. 14, 2024, a mass shooting occurred during the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory parade, resulting in one death and at least 24 injuries.
Q: How have the survivors and their families been affected?
A: The survivors and their families have experienced trauma, anxiety, and depression, with many struggling to cope with the aftermath of the shooting.
Q: What kind of support have the survivors received?
A: Initially, there was a significant outpouring of financial support and well wishes, but this has since dried up, leaving many survivors feeling abandoned and isolated.
Q: What is the current situation like for the survivors?
A: The survivors are still struggling to come to terms with what happened, with many experiencing flashbacks, anxiety, and depression. Some have reported feeling forgotten or abandoned by their community and the team they support.
