Robert Aguilar and Rosa Miranda survived the worst mass shooting in US history together. And, on Oct. 1, the longtime couple reclaimed the anniversary of the ill-fated Route 91 Harvest Festival as their own by getting married on it.
Aguilar and Miranda stood near the front of the stage during the set by country singer Jason Aldean, when a gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay resort. The 2017 massacre left 58 people dead (not including the gunman) and hundreds more injured.
Rosa Miranda and Robert Aguilar are survivors of the Oct. 1 Las Vegas mass shooting five years ago. To help fight the power that this horrible anniversary held over their lives, the couple decided to get married on it last Saturday. (Image: usatoday.com)
A bullet pierced Aguilar’s chest, shattering three ribs and lodging in his spine. He was temporarily paralyzed. (Later, doctors told him the bullet came within an inch of permanently paralyzing him.) For 10 more minutes, the couple played dead as the nightmare played out around them. When the shooting stopped, Aguilar was loaded onto a guardrail and dragged to a car by a group of men. Led by a former firefighter, they rushed him and other victims to the hospital.
Oct. 1 Not Their First Choice
The massacre’s fifth anniversary wasn’t the couple’s first choice for a wedding date after Miranda accepted Aguilar’s proposal. His mother made that suggestion. After a while, though, the possible healing power of that defiant notion slowly started to sink in.
“It’s a day we both dreaded,” Miranda, 41, told USA Today. “We want it to be something positive, something special, something that we came out of. So I said, ‘Yeah.’”
Aguilar, 47, added: “We had to find a way to make that day a joyous day, something to have a better memory from.”
Miranda and Aguilar tied the knot on Oct. 1 in Camarillo, Calif.
“Saturday was the most amazing day of my entire life,” Miranda told USA Today afterward. “There was so much happiness, I can’t even explain.”
Heartrending Meet-Cute, Too
The story of how the couple met is almost as moving as the story of when they chose to marry.
Seven years ago, Aguilar was divorced and raising two daughters, while Miranda’s husband had died, leaving her to raise three kids alone. They met because they both had daughters on the same high-school softball team. When the 14-year-old girls became friends, they hatched a plan to set their parents up.
“At first, my daughter told me and I said, ‘No, you’re not going to try to set me up with someone just because she’s your friend’s dad. I can find someone if I want to,’” Miranda told USA Today.
But love had other plans. They were a couple about two years when they decided to attend the Route 91 Harvest Festival together.
Shooting Aftermath
Aguilar had to use a walker, then a cane, for years. And the PTSD, depression and survivor’s guilt both suffered was at times unbearable. Aguilar, an Army veteran, told USA Today: “There were a lot of days I thought there was no reason I should be here on this Earth anymore.”
At the suggestion of Aguilar’s medical doctor, the couple both entered therapy.
“They were just like, ‘You need to go talk to somebody,’” he said. “I didn’t think I needed to, but after a while, it weighs on you. You can’t sleep, you can’t do this, you can’t do that, and it really affects your everyday life.”
Helping to bring the couple’s healing full circle was one of their wedding guests – the former firefighter who helped save Aguilar five years ago. Troy Finnestad, now a close friend, flew to Camarillo from Michigan with his wife.
“They really turned a day that was just horrible, to a really fun, memorable day,” Finnestad told USA Today. “You could not have had a better ending.”
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