Manitoba survivor of Las Vegas shooting reunited on TV with ‘my hero’

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This article was published 04/03/2019 (2762 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Las Vegas man and a Manitoba woman whose life he saved in the worst mass shooting in United States history were reunited on a recently aired American TV game show.

Justin Uhart was a contestant on the show Deal or No Deal, hosted by Howie Mandel, the gimmick of which this season is to have a surprise for its guests.

Uhart got his surprise in the form of a walk-on by his football idol, former Dallas Cowboys great Emmitt Smith.

He didn’t know the producers of the CNBC show had another surprise up their sleeves. That’s when Jan Lambourne from Teulon walked on.

Uhart rescued Lambourne in the Las Vegas shooting on Oct. 1, 2017. A lone gunman in a hotel suite sprayed bullets into a country music festival audience, killing 58 people and injuring more than 400 others.

Lambourne was shot in the stomach, shattering her pelvis. Uhart, who worked as a bartender at the concert, saw her lying on the ground unable to move. He carried her out of danger and kept her alive all the way to the surgery room doors three hours later.

The moment in Deal or No Deal when he turns to see her walk on stage is emotionally shattering for the two people. They hadn’t seen each other since Las Vegas and she was in a hospital bed following surgery.

They hug and cry. “This is my hero,” Lambourne says, fighting through her tears and jabbing a finger at Uhart.

“To see him there and be there for him just meant the world to me,” she said on Monday from her home north of Teulon, about 45 kilometres north of Winnipeg, that she shares with her husband, Joseph.

The show was actually taped in Orlando, Fla., last July, but only ran on Feb. 20 and only in the United States. It can be seen on YouTube.

Uhart, 27, had auditioned for the game show and was chosen, but had no idea what producers had in store for him. Then Lambourne, 47, got a call from the producers inviting her to surprise Uhart on the show. She had only been out of a wheelchair about a month at the time and needs a cane to walk.

“The emotions just took over” when she met her rescuer onstage, Lambourne said. “I couldn’t even remember my name. It was just amazing to see him and hear his voice, that voice that kept me alive.”

Lambourne relives the memory every day. After being shot and unable to move, she tried to hide behind a wheelbarrow but then someone pulled it away, leaving her exposed.

She heard a young man running by and yelling at everyone to keep moving. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, keep going,” shouted the man, who turned out to be Uhart. But she couldn’t move.

Uhart is aptly named, because he is all heart. In a telephone interview, Uhart said he couldn’t explain why he didn’t just keep running with the other people at the concert. “Her eyes were just screaming for help,” he said.

With the assistance of a police officer — Uhart held her arms and the officer her legs — they carried Lambourne about 70 metres to cover. Uhart has military training and knew he couldn’t let Lambourne fall asleep. He also knew he needed to plug her wound or she would bleed to death.

“He kept pressure on my wound for three hours. He kept holding my stomach, I was holding his hand,” she said.

He wouldn’t let her fall asleep. “He kept me talking. That was the biggest thing. We talked about absolutely everything we could think of to keep me awake,” she recalled.

“This is one of the bravest, kind-hearted men you’ll ever meet.”

Recovery has been difficult for the mother of two grown boys. The bullet broke in two pieces and is still lodged in her pelvis, and she has a lot of internal injuries, including nerve damage.

She stayed in a hospital for five weeks, then stayed in a hospital bed in her living room for about seven months.

Even with the injury now supposedly healed, she is still in pain and it feels like something is sawing into her when she moves. “It doesn’t matter if I’m walking or rolling over in bed, I’m in pain,” she said.

She recently went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for a second opinion and was told her pelvis didn’t heal properly and the only solution is to rebreak it and set it again. She is contemplating what to do.

She also continues to receive therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and no longer works at a hair salon.

However, she’s grateful for the “phenomenal” support of her family, friends and community. “They understand that I’m still healing,” she said.

She has difficulty leaving the house except for rehab and therapy, but continues to work from home as president of the Teulon Chamber of Commerce and, in summer, president of the Teulon District Memorial Garden.

The show was a nice highlight. As for the result, call it karma. Uhart won US$120,000. He plans to buy a house.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca