DENVER — When Amanda Kubec first heard a shot ring out at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas in 2017, she said she thought it could be fireworks.
"Especially being at a concert we thought, 'Maybe there’s a fireworks show we didn’t know about,'" the 26-year-old said.
But what she thought were fireworks in fact turned out to be gunshots. Fifty-eight people were killed that day almost two years ago in October -- Kubec lives with the trauma of the mass shooting every day.
"For me, it’s definitely sounds and noises," Kubec said.
Kubec said she started to realize she was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when she brought her car into a tire shop. Symptoms of PTSD can cause an adverse reaction to even the smallest triggers.
"There was a very repetitive sound," Kubec said. "I remember distinctly that was the first time something happened after the shooting that really got to me.
I was shaking. I could barely get into my car. I sped back to my apartment and dropped to the floor. I was hyperventilating."
The experiences don't stop either, Kubec said. But in the last two years, she has come to understand her trauma. Now, she's better at predicting what, when or where she may find triggers.
"People ask me all the time, 'Do bullets sound like fireworks or do fireworks sound like bullets?'," Kubec said. "The answer is, absolutely. They almost sound identical."
Kubec said the Fourth of July is difficult for her. Last year, she spent the holiday in her closet to avoid the sound of fireworks.
"Even on social media right now, people are videotaping fireworks shows. I have to be careful to stay off social media because, you’re just scrolling through Instagram and next thing you know, you hear those noises and it just, it takes you back to that state of fear," Kubec said. "And it’s fear to a magnitude that is so difficult to describe because you’re really in fear for your life."
Kubec said she isn’t on a mission to eliminate or ban fireworks, but she does want to make people aware of the struggle that shooting survivors face during Independence Day celebrations.
"I don’t want to change Fourth of July. We have holidays for a reason," she said. "Fireworks are fun! It brings me back to my childhood of sitting in the street in my little Old Navy one-piece swimsuit that everybody had, running through the sprinklers. It’s a community thing and I would never want to change that."
Kubec said she is sharing her PTSD story so that people in her community can see a different perspective. She also wants other shooting survivors to know that they are not alone.
"There are just people who are going to be having a bad day on the Fourth," Kubec said. "Truly, all I ask is for a little compassion.
"Even if somebody buys one less firework, it could make a difference."
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