I’ll begin by saying I AM SAFE!!
Honestly, thank the Lord that He was watching over me and kept me away from the area of the shooting in Las Vegas. I can not even begin to describe the experience I was faced with, and I wasn't even personally at the Route 91 Music Festival. I was a couple of streets away, luckily, at the Cosmopolitan Hotel with a few guys that Lauren and I had met and were planning on hitting the strip with for our last night in Vegas.
We had gone to Las Vegas for four days with intentions of having a BLAST {with no bumps in the road} to celebrate my 22nd birthday. All was fun and games {aka bottle service and gambling} until Sunday evening came around… During the day we had gone to a pool party and we had met a group of guys celebrating a bachelor party. We hung out with them the entirety of the party and then had decided to meet up with them that night, as well as a couple of my family friends {Kathleen and Anne Marie} who were also in Vegas.
Around ten o'clock at night, I decided to text Kathleen and ask her where she wanted to meet in order to go out that night. Moments later, my phone rang with her name on my screen, so I answered. She was crying and calling me by my full name saying, “Victoria Lee Doder, do NOT leave the hotel you are at right now!! There is a shooting.”
I was speechless and shaking.
With that, I kept in constant communication with my friends who were at the festival and the news was immediately turned on. So much was going on on the news and social media, nobody knew what was true which TERRIFIED me… We were told there were a least seven shooters. We were informed that one shooter was on a balcony of a hotel {and the Cosmo is the only hotel in Vegas with a balcony}. We were told there was a bomb in a hotel. We were told that active fire was going on ALL around us.
It wasn't until hours later that we found out these allegations were false.
All I can say though is that I am sending all my prayers and blessings to the victims of the Las Vegas shooting. It was a freak incident that should have {and maybe even could have} been prevented and I could not even fathom experiencing it first hand. For those of you who know somebody who was there {family, friend, acquaintance} be sure to send them your love and blessings.
If you would like to get involved and help out the community by donating, I know there are multiple GoFundMe pages going around the web, blood donations are greatly appreciated, and so many other ways to help and get involved.
xoxo v
