Russell Bleck describes how he copes after Vegas shooting: “I’m never forgetting what happened that day.” #ABC2020 https://t.co/dHAaU69gfv pic.twitter.com/Qo6MGJFqcW
— 20/20 (@ABC2020) October 27, 2017
Just 25 days after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, the survivors are now speaking to ABC News’ 20/20 about the traumatic Route 91 Harvest Festival massacre.
One of the survivors, Russell Bleck, 28, tells the news agency that he has five nightmares a night and now hides in a closet when he is scared.
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“I wake up from my dreams and just run down this hallway, into the spare room where I know Brea can’t see me. And I have a blanket and pillow from when I hide,” Bleck said.
While it is done partly in effort to keep his fiancée shielded from a strong reaction, he adds that it is also a matter of feeling safe for him.
“I’ll just run into this closet and shut the lights off and shut the door and put my body against so no one can’t kind of come in. I lock myself for hours,” Bleck added. “I run away from my fiancée. When I get upset, she relives it. When she gets upset, I can get her mind off from things.”
He says though that when things hit him, no one can talk him out of those feelings.
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“It’s hard to let her see me like that, it’s not a matter of weakness, or looking like a badass or anything like that, it’s just a matter of security,” he said.
Bleck said he will work through the pain of being “broken” so that he can be whole in the end. He admits it took three weeks for him to look at her because of how he was mentally and emotionally disturbed.
“I am 28 years old and I call my mom to feel better and hide in a closet. [If] you got do it, you got to do it,” he said.
Photo credit: Twitter / @lasvegaslocally
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