NORTH HALEDON TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A New Jersey mom who was able to flee October's Las Vegas mass shooting has given birth to a son who may be the massacre's youngest survivor.
At the time, Megan Marie Panzera, who was then Megan Iannuzzi, was living and teaching in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, Nevada. On Oct. 1, the last day of the Route 91 Harvest Festival, she was four weeks pregnant with boyfriend Valdo Panzera Jr.'s child.
She was tired, so instead of standing in the crowd to watch the concert, the couple opted to sit in bleacher seats at the back. The decision may have saved their lives, they said.
When the gunman opened fire on the crowd, Panzera and Iannuzzi were able to escape physically unharmed. Fifty-eight people were killed and hundreds were wounded in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
"If we weren't in the back, we would've been up in the crowd. And it could've been a lot different for us," she said.
Iannuzzi left her job teaching kindergartners soon afterward to return to New Jersey. The Panzeras wed in March, and Valdo Panzera III was born June 3.
"He's our hero," his father said.
But the mass shooting eight months ago also left its scars.
The Panzeras are more attuned to their surroundings now, and their son's birth has heightened their need to feel safe.
"The things you didn't think about before you have to think about now," Megan Panzera said. "And it's just a different world now that we're going to be raising him in. It's really scary."
Going to the mall with her newborn son is an unnerving idea, she said. And she's not sure she'll ever feel safe at another concert.
"Running away with a toddler or an infant is a lot harder than running around with yourself," she said. She is constantly asking herself whether somewhere is safe to go.
She already dreads little Valdo's first day of school, years in the future.
"You can't even send them to school," Megan Panzera said of school shootings in the past eight months. "That's supposed to be your safe place away from home."
The couple both say some of the recent experiences that have triggered memories are surprising.
NBC-TV's sports competition show American Ninja Warrior reminded Megan Panzera of the shooting because the show is taped in Las Vegas, she said. She also can't really listen to the two songs Jason Aldean was performing in the minutes leading up to the shooting.
"I hear helicopters, and I think right back to that moment," Valdo Panzera said. "There were helicopters flying over the strip."
Even food truck smells take them back because the trucks were on the Las Vegas Strip to serve festival patrons.
Valdo Panzera is a dispatcher with the North Haledon Police Department. In March, while sitting in his car, he was alerted to a possible shooter at the regional high school.
"My heart literally dropped," he said.
It was a false alarm. A student mistook a new teacher as an intruder, but the event was jolting.
The couple belongs to a Facebook group for Las Vegas shooting survivors that they sometimes read, Megan Panzera said.
Hearing other survivors' stories is difficult, she said.
Talking to their therapists and family members gives them support, Megan Panzera said. Learning about joyous moments from survivors does, too — as does the newest member of their family.
"I've seen some babies beforehand, and we're pretty sure he is (the youngest)," she said.
