Sunday’s Las Vegas massacre left 58 innocent concertgoers dead, but without the work of heroes like first responders and other concertgoers like Jonathan Smith, that number could be much higher.
Smith made headlines this week for helping somewhere around 30 people to safety during the mass shooting unleashed by Stephen Paddock before he himself was shot in the neck and arm.
Videos by PopCulture.com
At that point, an off-duty police officer, Tom McGrath, sprung to action and transported the 30-year-old father of three to safety, covering his bullet-hole wounds with his fingers until they made it to the hospital.
The bullet in Smith’s neck is still there because doctors are reluctant to remove it lest they cause more damage. The injury means Smith is in “constant pain,” as he told CNN.
During a live interview on CNN, both Smith and McGrath became emotional when they were “reunited” on air.
“He’s somebody who inspires me,” McGrath said about Smith, who wiped tears from his eyes. “I know he might not want to give himself all the credit, but he definitely did a wonderful job, and I was just happy to be there to help him towards the end, and get him out of there when he was hit.”
“I owe that man my life because from the moment I got hit, he was the first one to actually help me stop the bleeding,” Smith said of McGrath. “He never left my side at all…I kept telling him ‘I don’t want to die,’ and he said ‘You’re not going to die, I got you.’ “
Smith told the interviewer that “I honestly thought I was going to die,” and called McGrath his “brother.”
He went on to say that he doesn’t see himself as a hero.
“Everyone’s been using that word — ‘hero.’ I’ve been saying it since the whole time I got home — I’m not a hero, I’m far from a hero. I think I just did what anybody would do,” he said.
“Was it smart [what I did]? Probably not,” he admitted. “But if that was someone else in those shoes, and they seen me, I would want them to come back and help me.”
The two recognized that through the trauma of Sunday’s domestic terror attack, there was also a spirit of humanity uniting the victims.
“Through this tragedy I remember, nobody suffered alone. When people were dying there was somebody there who was holding their hands or holding them in their arms, comforting them,” McGrath said.
“When people had injuries, no matter how severe it was, (people were) trying to get them to safety, nobody suffered alone and I think that’s the takeaway from the whole entire situation.”
