What do you say to a person that risks their life to save yours?
Or if it was you mother, sister or wife?
When mere words are so inadequate.
Justin Uhart was making a few bucks as a festival bartender. When the shooting started, he stayed. His ROTC training kicked-in. He told people standing there stunned to "Get the f--- out and run! This is real! Get out!"
A security-guard was shot through the head and fell on him. He assessed those on the ground, discerning who was twitching in their death throes, which he saw all to many of, and who needed help.
Jan Lambourne is from a small town in Manitoba, Canada...in Las Vegas for the first time. She had gone to all three nights of the festival when the bullets started popping.
"I don't know if that's fireworks," she told her friend.
And than the searing pain as she was shot with a bullet tearing through her stomach and intestines, shattering her pelvic bone.
She crawled to hide inside a merchandise tent. She picked up her phone and texted her husband, as the blood was literally spurting out of her.
‘I love you. I've been shot. I love you so much.’
That’s when Justin spotted her, screaming for help.
He ran to her with bullets whizzing by, and started applying pressure to the wound.
"I just saw the blood and … I just had to stop and help her, and try to get her some help, any way I could. She didn't know anybody and she was just terrified.
"She was in a lot of pain. And I said I won't leave her and she's had a death grip. It's a desperate grip that I cannot describe. She was always saying don't leave me … and I promised, I just promised I wouldn't leave."
"Hey, hey, relax. Look at me. I'm here. I'm not going to leave you!"
He carried her to safety.
He stayed with her in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and at the hospital until she went into surgery. Holding her hand.
Whilst in the ambulance, keeping pressure on her wound, he kept a running conversation with both her and a young man with a shattered hip, trying to keep them distracted and calm. And that continued in the hospital.
"The paramedics, doctors and nurses were telling me, 'Just keep talking. Just keep talking.'"
He held a wet towel to her lips, not able to drink.
For three hours he was with her.
And then whilst she was in surgery, he called different members of her family to tell them what happened to her and where she was.
Reports CNN:
"I haven't been able to sleep very much," he said. "I was throwing up. I think it all kind of hit me." And he kept thinking about Jan, hoping she had survived the surgery. Then came a Facebook notification: "Jan Lambourne sent you a friend request." Relief washed over him. She had survived.
"You can't just run away," said Justin. "I had to help. I had to do something."
“He kept me alive. I’m just so grateful. I’m going home.”
Words can’t adequately express what this act of ...heroism and kindness don’t adequately describe it... means to a person, family or the community-at-large.
There were many, many acts of heroism that day.
This is but one.