Woman Shot In Head During Las Vegas Attack Emerges From Coma

The attack in Las Vegas earlier this month was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Amid all the tragedy, stories of triumph and everyday heroes have emerged.

Tina Frost, 27, was one of the victims in the attack and was shot in the head. The bullet went through her eye and penetrated her brain, sending her into a coma. Now she has awoken from her coma and has even taken her her first steps, according to the GoFundMe page established to help support her medical care.

Frost had traveled to Las Vegas from San Diego, where she had been living, to see the Route 91 Harvest Festival along with her boyfriend, Austin Hughes.

Frost, Hughes and some friends were gathered near the front of the stage when Stephen Paddock began shooting into the crowd. Frost was shot in her right eye during the attack that killed 58 people and wounded more than 500. Hughes used his shirt as a compress to slow the bleeding. An off-duty fireman whom Hughes only knew as “Shane” helped carry Frost to safety and eventually to a pickup truck that transported her and several other victims to the hospital.

The night Frost arrived at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, the odds of her survival were not good.

“There’s a 90 percent mortality rate for people shot in the head,” Dr. Keith Blum, the doctor who treated Frost that night, told Las Vegas Review-Journal. “What you’re hoping for are skull fractures, people who’ve been grazed. High-velocity rifle bullets to the brain aren’t easy to deal with.”

Frost underwent emergency surgery that night to relieve pressure on her brain, and to allow doctors to better assess the scope of her brain injury and remove bullet fragments. Blum called her recovery “miraculous.”

The GoFundMe page set up to help pay for Frost’s medical treatment also serves as a communication hub for Frost’s family and friends to communicate updates on her recovery.

The family has been chronicling her progress almost daily—sharing the small successes of her recovery and acknowledging their hope in her strength for the long road ahead.

Frost was moved from Las Vegas to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, closer to where Frost grew up in Crofton, Maryland.

On Oct. 19, an update on Frost’s condition was posted by her family, noting that she’d had a successful surgery to help stop drainage from her injury and better “stabilize the bone around her nose and eye.”

“They were glad that they had the surgery today so they could see everything and get an overall picture. Tina will be having several more surgeries for the reconstruction and there are many more steps involved over the next weeks and months. On another note, Tina took 163 steps yesterday, smiles sometimes, hugs her dad and puckers her lips for Austin! Occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy are all working with Tina and she is just a true warrior! The next few days will be recovery and hanging out!”

Frost was working as an accountant at Ernst & Young in San Diego.

We’re wishing Tina Frost and her loved ones all the best in their continued fight!