re: Have any of y'all been directly affected by a Mass Casualty Event/Terrorist Attack?

I used to be a Technical Rescue Specialist on a FEMA USAR task force.

We were sent to the Pentagon on 9/11.

Stayed there a couple of weeks.

Not a directly affected situation. I was with a school sponsored trip for my daughter to Europe. We had just arrived in Paris and our first stop was the Eiffel Tower. We went up and everything was normal. About 15 minutes in I get a news notification on my phone about a terrorist attack in Paris. It was the event where a police officer was killed on the Champs-Elysees. I could see the lights from the response from the tower. We fairly quickly gathered the kids and made our way down and to the bus. As we were exiting there were French military troops everywhere patrolling the Eiffel Tower grounds, fully armed and ready to respond. Even with that, the tower was still open for business and letting people in. The rest of the trip there was an armed military presence visible. We don’t get to go to the Champs-Elysees as planned, so I guess I was directly impacted, though not in the way meant by OP.

Weather wise- I was in the Georgia Dome when the tornado hit during the SEC basketball tournament. That was scarier than the Paris event. If you haven’t seen the SEC Storied episode about this it’s worth a watch.

Let’s not forget Covid!

That’s strange. Usually it’s the engineer that kills the lawyer.

It wasn't a "mass casualty event" but it was part of a crime spree that lasted several days. My mom was the night manager at a local hotel for a few years and one time a group of 3 thugs decided that hotels in the area were a good target. They had been robbing them for a couple days and police were doing extra patrols around them.

So this group of guys comes in, guns drawn, and immediately overpower my mom. They tied her up woth phone cord and start asking for the money at the counter and the office safe. She tells them how to get the money from the register but tells them the safe is on an auto time lock. They rough her up and start going through her stuff for any extra cash she might have. One finds her license and tells her "I know where you live now, bitch."

About that time, a cop who was doing one of those extra patrols comes in the front as he had seen some of the struggle through a window. There is an immediate gunfight and the cop is hit in the leg right above his knee so he scrambles for cover and the 3 guys shoot a window out and flee. The cop had shot one and they caught him shortly after across the street. They caught the other two about 14 hours later walking down the interstate because their stolen vehicle died and one of them had been shot too and was close to death from his injuries.

They had hit 4 hotels in the previous two nights and one of the guys was a 17 year old kid who was obviously mentally slow. My mother had a hell of a case of PTSD and shut herself in the house for years afterward. She has gone to all of their parole hearings to do whatever she can to make sure they serve their entire sentences. One is due to get out in 2026. Weird thing is she feels bad for the young, slow guy because she thinks he was clearly manipulated into going along with the older men. She and I both consider the cop that ran in to be a true hero that saved her life.

Came close. If women taking a long time to get ready wasn't a global universal trait. There is a decent chance I would be dead right now.


We missed our train into Paris where we were going to a bar by the concert. I believe 18 people were killed and 36 injured after the bar was sprayed with AKs and had several grenades thrown into it.

Yes it took a bit for her to shake it. She still thinks about her friend and we have a small photo wall dedicated to her in the house. Things that drove her nuts were people using "route 91 survivor" as an identity to gain attention for social events etc...

I know about a half-dozen LEO who were working a detail and were on scene when the NOLA NYE attack happened. They said that those who were hit and killed by the guy suffered some pretty gruesome injuries. A couple witnessed one victim die right then and there.

Being in a foreign country far away from home when 9/11 occurred was strange. When people realized you were an American, most acted kindly and offered condolences, etc. Others didn't know what to say.

An uncle of mine attended Covington Elementary the same time Lee Harvey Oswald was there (1946-47). He told me later in life that he only vaguely remembered Oswald, but it's still strange to know he crossed paths with a (alleged) Presidential assassin.

My father-in-law worked (and sometimes carpooled) with a serial killer.

That's all I got.

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I guess it has directly affected me in the sense that I avoid the occasional Sandy Hook hoaxer thread because I become irrationally angry at things said about them.

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There is nothing irrational about getting mad at people who call Sandy Hook a hoax.

I know someone who was in the room when Amy Bishop killed her coworkers at UAH. He got under the table and I guess she ran out of ammo.


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