Las Vegas Terror Attack Survivors Getting Tattoos in Remembrance

Though no one is likely to forget surviving a domestic terror attack, those that made it out of the Las Vegas shooting are taking to social media and showing the different tattoos each is getting in remembrance of the event.

One of the survivors, Michael, shared the image of his bicep on Instagram. The tattoo is of a poker chip with the Route 91 logo in the center. It has the date of the attack on the outer edge of the playing chip and the entire chip is set inside a rose stem with two bloomed flowers.

“We will never forget,” he wrote. The message was accompanied by the hashtags #route91harvest #vegastrong and #countrystrong.

Jason Aldean was on stage for as the headlining act on the closing night of the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas when Stephen Paddock opened fire into the crowd from his suite at the Mandalay Bay overlooking the audience. The 11-minute rampage killed 58 people and wounded over 500 more before Paddock turned the gun on himself.

The mass shooting was the worst in modern American history, and authorities still remain puzzled as to the motive.

Another survivor, Alexis Bell, was at the concert with her mother and friends when the shooting started. She also shared her tattoo on Instagram.

Alexis’ ink is on the back of her tricep and has the Las Vegas skyline with the Route 91 logo in the middle with the date on the right side above her elbow.

She posted a much more verbose account of the incident and her decision to get the tattoo.

“I was at a country concert with my mom and friends when someone tried to murder us along with thousands of others,” she wrote. “While we may never understand why someone would do such a thing, we are forced to accept that it happened and that we now have to accept a new reality. I put a permanent reminder on my body to constantly remind myself that it so easily could’ve been me that was killed. I don’t know how or why I wasn’t but not a day will ever go by that I’m not thankful to be alive.”

As each moves forward in their own way, Aldean returned to the stage for his first concert since the incident. He played three songs before sharing his message with the fans: “These people are going to continue to try to hold us down; to those people that keep trying to do that, I say f–k you, we don’t really care. I want to play the show for you guys that the people in Las Vegas came to see and didn’t get a chance to.”

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