Her daughter died in the Vegas shooting. Here’s how this Bradenton mom is finding purpose again

April 1 marks 18 months since Stephen Paddock aimed modified weapons out of his 32nd floor window of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, spraying more than 1,100 bullets into a packed concert crowd at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas.

One of the bullets struck Summer Radtke-Hill’s daughter in the head, killing Hannah Lassett Ahlers, 34, instantly and leaving three young children without a mother.

Ahlers was one of 58 dead and hundreds of others were either wounded by gunfire or hurt in the ensuing panic, making the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting the deadliest in U.S. history.

“When we got that phone call early Monday about 2 a.m. with the news of what happened, I had no hate for the man that did it,” Radtke-Hill said. “I hurt for him because he’s a lost soul. Why would I hate someone like that?”

Radtke-Hill and her entire family carry with them a strong faith in God and through the grieving process she said they could never find hate, only pity for Paddock, who was found by law enforcement an hour after the first shots were fired, dead by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“I know he’s somewhere suffering because he knows what he did,” Radtke-Hill said while on her couch at home on Thursday. “I also know Hannah is in a better place. I know she’s in heaven.”

Radtke-Hill is a woman of powerful spiritual strength. Her husband Frank Hill, who took the call that fateful day, said when he and his wife returned to their native California to be with friends and family after the shooting, “Everyone was coming to her to be consoled when she just lost her daughter. And she would console them. It was a phenomenal thing to watch. I don’t know how anyone who doesn’t know the Lord could cope with something like this. I really don’t.”

Though her faith is strong, the past 18 months have been a struggle. Radtke-Hill found it difficult to get out of the house and do anything that would remotely remind her of her daughter other than going to church.

But that all changed when she volunteered at an event for homeless and low-income women.

“I thought I was going in their to pass out purses so I wasn’t thinking anything about it,” she said. “But I came out with so much more, so much love and seeing all those girls who need so much love and for somebody to believe in them, really believe in them.”

The event was the semi-annual Pampering and Empowerment program started by Facing Homelessness Bradenton chapter founder Larua Licoski. The two women also go to church together at the First Church of the Nazarene in west Bradenton. Licoski had tried unsuccessfully for months to get Radtke-Hill involved in her programs.

Then this: Phil and Laura Quasarano were speaking at the church about how faith pulled them through their own tragedy. The couple had six family members, including children and an infant, succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning while living in Michigan in 2016.

The message was that you can do two things with grief: Either let it consume you or use the energy to do something positive to honor those you lost.

Licoski was sitting next to the Hills at church that day.

“I just kept reaching over Frank and grabbing Summer’s hand and we were both crying,” Licoski said. “I wasn’t giving her a choice anymore. I told her she was coming with me and when she said yes, I made sure to tell everyone at church so she couldn’t back out.”

The event is a chance for women who are struggling with daily life or personal issues such as addiction to understand their self value. Radtke-Hill learned something important from the Quasarano family and discovered a new purpose in how to honor Hannah’s memory.

“So Summer is now looking at what good can come from this,” Licoski said. “When you share your testimony with some women who may have been raped or you don’t know what else, it can be healing to them. They also understand that, hey, maybe my life isn’t so bad. She didn’t want to at first because she just wasn’t ready, but she’s seeing that volunteering isn’t just helping others, it helps you.”

Radtke-Hill shared her story and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Licoski said she lost a daughter 18 months ago, but she gained 11 daughters the day she opened up those women.

“She had a big impact on them,” Licoski said. “No one was prepared for what she has been through and for her to stay there and say I want to love on you, it was huge for them. They were also honored it was the first time Summer had done something like that. Everyone in the room was impacted. Everyone was in tears.”

Putting Las Vegas behind them

In January, the FBI officially closed its investigation into the Las Vegas shooting, finding, “no single or clear motivating factor,” for the killings.

The Hills said the final report didn’t matter.

“The fact is we got closure in knowing this man could never hurt anyone else again,” Frank Hill said. “A lot of people don’t get that.”

Radtke-Hill said she’ll never forget, but she can honor her daughter by doing the one thing she knows Hannah would have wanted: to keep living. She’s found a new purpose in life and said she will keep working with the homeless women she has met and bonded with.

“The big step in the healing process is when you stop thinking about yourself and your own grief,” Radtke-Hill said. “It’s freeing. I realize there is so much hurt and sadness, but when you can step out of it all and help someone else, then that’s a blessing to all involved.”

Ahlers attended the concert with her husband Brian. They were close to the stage when the shooting started and thought at first they were hearing fireworks. When Brian turned again, it clicked that shots were being fired. As he turned around to step in front of his wife of 17 years to protect her, she was already on the ground dead.

Hannah’s sister is now helping to take care of the three children while also caring for an ailing husband. It’s who they are as a family.

Radtke-Hill said there are some who are having a rough time. Many family members continue to ask the inevitable question, “Why Hannah? She had three children; why her?”

Radtke-Hill said another family member told her that God answered that question by telling her God’s words to her, “I caught Hannah before she even hit the ground.”

“That was powerful,” Radtke-Hill said. “I know my daughter didn’t suffer and that’s something.”

She can’t wait to get back together with “the girls. I went in there thinking I would be a blessing to them and instead, they were a blessing to me. There were lots of tears and hugs. I know Hannah would be so proud and that she was right there, too. I love those girls and fell in love with all of them. I still have my bad days, but more good days now.

“There are so many things that remind me of Hannah. I find bird feathers on the ground and I know that’s a Hannah moment. I went and had a massage a few months ago that Hannah had bought me two years ago. The lady told me that a butterfly was hovering over me the whole time and that she’d never seen anything like that before. That was Hannah.

“It’s getting easier, but I’ll see random things like Hannah somebody in the credits of a movie I just watched and I’ll start crying. It comes on you unexpectedly. But my favorite saying is grief is the price you pay for loving someone. I loved her.”

As for the Las Vegas incident, Radtke-Hill believes there is more to the story, but no longer focuses on it. Her focus is on honoring her daughter’s memory in the most positive way she can imagine doing.

She’s learning that just by sharing her story, can help herself and others find healing and purpose.

Though the shooting sparked another national gun control debate, Radtke-Hill wanted to make one point clear.

“I want to stress to you that I’m not against guns,” she said. “I was pressed to say something negative against guns in almost every interview. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

This story was originally published March 29, 2019 at 9:19 AM.