[Music]
PAM SIMON: I heard pops.
It sounded like a cap gun.
My instant thought is this is a very bad joke.
[Music]
PAM: On January 8th, 2011, I was working for Congressman Giffords.
I arrived at a safe way early in the morning along with my coworker Gabe Simmerman who
was the community outreach director.
The two of us were setting up for Congress on Your Corner, which is a way we take the
office to the people.
I ran into the safe way to get a hot cocoa from the Starbucks and I was not aware at
that time of course that just a few feet away there was a young man with a hoodie and he
was putting earplugs in his ears.
We came back out and we saw a friend who had been a past coworker so I left the line.
A couple minutes later, I started back and realized the Congresswoman was talking to
a couple who had indicated to me earlier that they would really like to have a picture so
I stopped beside our photographer and said that couple wants a picture.
We both leaned forward to say to her turn around and look at us for the picture and
a figure appeared between us.
All my brain had time to register is that the person had a hood on and it just blocked
my view from the Congresswoman.
I heard pops.
It sounded like a cap gun and my instant thought is this is a very bad joke.
Totally inappropriate for this setting.
I then saw the Congresswoman's feet fly into the air and saw my district director, in my
memory, he melted to the ground.
He just began to go down.
And then I literally just found myself on the ground and it took a flash for me to realize
what had happened.
PAM: When I hit the ground, I was not aware of where I was shot, but I was aware that
I had been injured.
I was laying absolutely flat on the ground.
Evidently I did such a good job of playing dead that our horrified press secretary was
not injured but standing just a few feet away from the gunman.
His first call was to the chief of staff in Washington DC and he said both Gabe & Pam
are dead and so the first people knew was that I had died and I continued to lay very
very still even after I heard someone shout we got him.
It changed me in a variety of ways and over time.
The first feeling is just obviously shock.
I was not aware of who else had been killed, who else had been injured.
I didn't even find out that Gabe had been killed until the next day.
When the healing, the physical healing had begun to end and I could go back to work,
it was a whole new chapter and that's when I think the epiphany for me begins to start
because when you come so close—a quarter of an inch—it came that close to going into
my heart, so you feel like you're on Earth for a reason.
There's no explaining why I'm still alive and Gabe is not.
I felt like I needed to keep everyone's spirits up, so I was continually smiling and upbeat,
but it came as a toll because it covered a really deep grief and trauma and post traumatic
stress that I was trying to cover but at the same time a little drum beat was going on
that you have to make a different.
You're here for a limited time.
Other people didn't get that time so make every day count.
When I had the opportunity to get involved with Mayor Bloomberg's organization Mayors
Against Illegal Guns, I did it wholeheartedly.
Since the time I retired in June of 2012, I've gone with other survivors to meet with
the attorney general.
We've started a program that's called Demand A Plan and have filmed several ads, told our
stories, and encouraged other people across the country to sign on.
Demand A Plan is asking our leaders, can we not talk about guns?
Why is this a sacred cow?
Why is this something that can't be addressed?
It seems like we can barely catch our breath and there's another mass shooting and each
time we, those of us who have been victims, think to ourselves will this do it?
Will this be the time that the members of congress, that mayors across the nation, that
elected officials and state legislatures will deal with the issue?
It's so tragic that it has taken the deaths of 20 little children for people, I hope,
to wake up.
This is a new reality in our society and what kind of society produces a situation that
kids are afraid of being shot where they go to school?
We have a lot of work to do in this country and I feel so, so grateful that I'm alive
to be able to do some of that work.
I'm Pamela Simon.
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