Petaluma woman shot in Las Vegas attack

A Petaluma woman was among the more than 500 people shot at a country music concert in Las Vegas Sunday in the worst mass shooting in American history. Another Petaluma couple attended the concert but escaped the bloodshed unharmed.

Jeannine Ruggeiro, a Casa Grande High School graduate, was injured when a gunman opened fire from a hotel across the street from the concert, killing at least 58 and injuring at least 530. Ruggeiro, who is a San Jose State University graduate student, was recovering in a Las Vegas hospital from a gunshot wound that caused a collapsed lung and a broken rib, according to post on the crowd funding website GoFundMe.

“Our dear friend and fellow classmate Jeannine Ruggeiro was present and was impacted by this act of hate,” wrote Cindy Brown, a San Jose State student. “We are all hoping for a full recovery but know that she has a long road ahead of her.”

The GoFundMe page had raised nearly $22,000 as of Wednesday. According to the site, Ruggeiro is in her final year of a master’s in social work program at San Jose State and is an intern at the UC San Francisco hospital emergency department.

“Those who know Jeannine personally, know that she is always one of the first friends to offer a listening ear or provide support during hard times,” Brown wrote. “She is also a dedicated advocate for individuals who are homeless, those who have been impacted by domestic violence and is the type of person that would literally stop in the middle of the street to help an animal in need.”

Petaluma residents Kim Schubert and her boyfriend Joel Wahl were also at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival concert in Las Vegas with Sebastopol friends Jen and Justin McGrath.

Late Sunday night, about four songs into headliner Jason Aldean’s show, the foursome were in a VIP area, nearing the end of a long weekend of great music, Vegas fun and friendship.

“You started hearing popping sounds,” Schubert said. She feared it was gunfire. But her companions assured her it was fireworks.

“And then people just started getting shot next to us, behind us, in front of us,” she said. “We all just got down on the ground and started crawling. The shooting just kept going. Constant. It never stopped just kept going and going and going.”

At one point, on her own, she was hiding under bleachers with people still getting shot nearby. Her boyfriend, Wahl, a trained EMT who hopes to be hired as a law enforcement officer, had stayed in the crowd trying to help the wounded, she said. The McGraths had disappeared into the crowd, safely getting out of the outdoor concert venue.

Schubert called her 20-year-old daughter, Alexis.

“I was screaming and yelling and there were gunshots and she was freaking out,” Schubert said. “I told her ‘I’m hiding but I don’t know if I’m going to make it. I just want to tell you I love you.’?”

A call to her ex-husband passed on the same message to her younger son.

“I was crawling over people. I’m pretty sure they were dead. I had blood and dirt. I got trampled,” she said, now safe back in her hotel room.

After a few hours she and Wahl were reunited. Schubert expected she would be traumatized for a long time.

“You can’t unsee that,” she said. “You can’t unsee the screaming and people getting shot and people dropping like flies.”

(Press Democrat Staff Writer Randi Rossmann contributed to this report.)