COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — As a survivor of a mass shooting, Javier Nava knows the physical and emotional pain all too well.
“I was with my friends and my husband in the club, and you just never imagine something like that could happen to you,” Nava said of the June 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. “I got a gunshot in my abdomen.”
He was one of five who hid in a storage closet of the Pulse nightclub as a gunman went on rampage. A friend saved Nava from bleeding to death.
“With her knee, she was pushing my abdomen,” Nava said. “We heard all the gunshots from the beginning to the end.”
This week, Nava is in Colorado Springs, ready to connect with survivors and family members of the Club Q shooting.
“When I tell them I’m a survivor, they just open their heart,” he said of connecting with recent mass shooting survivors. “You create or make a connection with them.”
“Unfortunately, we’ve developed a lot of experience in dealing with these tragedies,” said Jeff Dion, executive director of the National Compassion Fund. “We have collected over $140 million for victims of mass casualty events.”
The National Compassion Fund is a nonprofit that collects and distributes charitable contributions in the aftermath of mass casualty events. Dion says 100% of donated funds go to family members of those who were killed, people who were injured and people who were present and experienced psychological trauma.
Dion, Nava and their team are hoping survivors of the Club Q shooting will join them at a meeting Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Pikes Peak Metropolitan Community Church. They hope to start the conversation about distributing the $1 million in donations that have poured in for Club Q victims, their loved ones and survivors.
“We know that 17 were wounded, but only 12 have signed up on our contact list,” Dion said. “So there’s still five we’re looking for. And of the five killed, only two families have spoken to the fund so far. We need to let people know there’s money here that is for you, but we can’t help you unless we know who you are.”
For Dion, this is personal.
“When I was 14 years old, my sister, Paulette, was murdered by a serial killer,” Dion said.
The fund will take names Thursday night, then validate those individual stories with law enforcement and local hospitals.
“Everybody who applies is validated through law enforcement and hospitals,” Dion said. “With the Boston Marathon Bombing, we did not administer that fund, but there were four people who went to jail for defrauding the fund by using fake medical records.”
Dion says his group takes painstaking efforts to ensure fraud does not occur.
It's tragic, but important work.
“I always wanted to visit Colorado because of the mountains, the snow. And it’s sad that I have to come here because of this situation,” Nava said. “One of my friends who died in the Pulse shooting, he was always telling me that whenever we go to Puerto Rico, we are going to do this and that. And my first visit in Puerto Rico was visiting the cemetery and going to see him.”
“What I would like more than anything else is to never, ever have to do this again,” Dion said. “But until we get better at fixing that, I’m going to make sure we’re all here to serve these victims and survivors.”
To apply for funds or donate, click here.
