“It took me 45 years to understand what it means to run for your life…It took Charlie [his son] only 9 years to experience this feeling.” —Brad Rago
Special Report by Dr. Dennis F. Augustine
In my Facebook post on the Fourth of July about celebrating Independence Day with Cecile, our daughter Michelle, her husband Kyle and our granddaughters Lyla and Emmy, I hinted about family members and acquaintances that survived the crazed attack by the rooftop shooter during a parade in downtown Highland Park, Illinois, a place we spent a lot of time at while living in Chicago and more recently last month.
I purposely left out the names of those who survived the attack because it was their story to tell. Our niece Emily Schwimmer shared a provocative and heartfelt essay on Facebook yesterday that her cousin Brad had written and posted on Linkedin (see link below). Brad and his family who live in Highland Park have been going to this yearly event since 2012. One can only imagine what it was like to go to the event expecting a celebration and leave a survivor of a mass shooting.
The youtube ABC Chicago video clip below gives you a birds-eye view of where he and his family were sitting when the repetitive shots were fired and people were fleeing for safety. He writes that his first instinct was to take his 9-year old boy Charlie and jettison him off to safety as fast as he could, telling him not to look back. The rest of the story will surprise you. It reads like a chapter in a fast-paced novel. But this is a real life story about real fear, and courage under fire from a man who doesn’t want anyone’s sympathy but is grateful that he and his family are alive and is respectful of law enforcement on the scene. His motive is simple: To have us learn from his experience that no one is immune. This can happen to any of us, and it's up to each one of us to help bring about change. There is much to learn here about the wisdom and sincerity of his message that is palpable.
Cecile and I are so happy and relieved to hear that Brad and his wife, Meridith, his son Charlie, and his parents Judy and Beau that we have seen at family events over the years are safe—albeit unstandably shaken.
Essay by Brad Rago: One degree of separation from a mass shooting: What are YOU going to do?
ABC video clip of shots fired and people fleeing for safety:
