She was one month pregnant during the shooting.
A New Jersey mom gave birth to the "youngest survivor" of the Las Vegas shooting earlier this month.
Megan Panzera found out she was four weeks pregnant just a week before she and her husband, Valdo Panzera Jr., attended the Route 91 Harvest Festival where gunman, Stephen Paddock, killed more than 50 people on October 1, 2017.
“We went all three days,” Megan said. “If I wasn’t pregnant we would have been up in the crowd like we were normally would. We gravitated towards the back of the venue because I was so tired.”
It was that decision that may have saved their lives.
As they sat on the bleachers in a section far from the stage and watched Jason Aldean perform on the night of the massacre, they said they heard the first set of gunshots go off. The popular country singer then ran from the stage.
“All of a sudden the lights came on and everyone started running, mayhem,” Valdo said. “I didn’t want Megan to get trampled and she’s pregnant. So we’re sitting there and I had a bullet fly right past my head.”
The couple said they ducked down in the bleachers before running to a nearby hotel. They were unharmed.
“When we got home we were like ‘did this really just happen to us?’” Megan said.
In the weeks after the shooting, Megan said she had to take days off to cope with what they experienced.
Megan, who now lives in New Jersey with her husband, gave birth to their son, Valdo Panzera III, on June 3. They are calling him the youngest survivor of that fateful day.
The couple hasn’t been to any concerts since the shooting, but they do plan on telling their son about how he survived when he is old enough to understand.
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