'A good day is a day we don't cry': Highland Park shooting survivors find strength — and a new cause

Nearly 12 months after a lone shooter opened fire from a downtown Highland Park rooftop during an Independence Day parade, survivors Lauren Bennett and her mother, Debbie Samuels, say they have good days and bad.

Now, the good days outnumber the bad, Bennett says.

She was struck in the hip and back by rounds from a military-style rifle during the July 4 mass shooting that killed seven people. Samuels was grazed by a bullet.

“We have a new normal,” said Samuels, 75. “A good day is a day we don't cry.”

Highland Park residents Katherine Goldstein, 64; Stephen Straus, 88; Jacquelyn “Jacki” Sundheim, 63; and husband and wife Kevin and Irina McCarthy, 37 and 35, were killed during the mass shooting, which also claimed the lives of Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78, of Morelos, Mexico, and Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, of Waukegan. Nearly 50 people, ranging in age from 8 to 88, were wounded during the attack that lasted about one minute.

“We live on the edge now,” said Bennett, whose mother-in-law was also injured in the shooting.

In public places, thoughts of a similar tragedy are always on their minds. “We watch the news,” Samuels said. “We know these mass shootings are happening all the time.”

Bennett, her husband and their youngest sons, ages 10 and 7, were at the parade along with her parents and in-laws when she was struck shortly after 10 a.m. Bennett, 42, felt pain in her hip; as she dove into the bushes for cover she was shot again in the back. In an interview with the Daily Herald earlier this year, she recalled thinking, “Am I dying?”

Getting to her feet, she and her family fled the area, and her husband, Michael, drove her to the hospital. They arrived before medical personnel had received word about the mass shooting.

Bennett and Samuels say they aren't scared and they won't cower. But the experience made them more conscious of their surroundings.

“We pretty much do everything we would have done before the shooting,” said Samuels. “We push ourselves sometimes, because we know we have to be strong for the kids and for ourselves.”

“We just have to live our lives,” she said.

For Bennett, that meant testifying last year before a General Assembly legislative committee in support of a bill prohibiting the manufacture, sale or purchase of certain high-powered weapons in Illinois. The bill became law in January but faces several challenges in federal court.

“I know how it feels to survive a mass shooting, and I know how it feels to be shot. What happened to us is not an isolated incident; it keeps happening,” she said.

Having found strength in sharing her story, Bennett continues to heal physically and emotionally.

“Our family is very close,” she said. “We talk a lot about our feelings and what happened that day. We're able to find strength that way.”

Returning to everyday activities helped Samuels heal but proved difficult initially.

“The emotions were just so raw at the time,” she said.

With help from friends and family, and the kindness of strangers, they persevere.

“Sometimes it takes a tragedy to see how good people are,” Bennett said. “The people in our community are charitable. They have big hearts. There's been nothing but open arms and love from our neighbors, friends and acquaintances and people from across the country who reached out to us.”

Last September, the women, represented by the law firm of Romanucci & Blandin, filed a lawsuit against gunmaker Smith & Wesson; online gun distributor Bud's Gun shop; gun retailer Red Dot Arms; Robert Crimo III, 22, of Highwood, accused of doing the shooting; and his father, Robert E. Crimo Jr. Filed originally in Lake County, the action is pending in federal court with no trial date set yet.

They're determined to make their community safer, Bennett said. And they are confident their family will heal.

“We're strong. We come from good stock,” Samuels said. “And we have a new normal.”

“We have a new purpose,” Bennett added.