By Dan Marries - email
TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - Ron Barber's physical wounds are slowly healing but the Jan. 8 shooting victim knows it is the mental wounds that will take even longer to mend.
Barber was one of the 13 people shot at a Tucson Safeway parking lot that killed six and injured 12 others including Barber's boss Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
Barber was standing right next to Congresswoman Giffords and Judge John Roll when the shooting happened, "he immediately went real close to the congresswoman and shot her then he turned his gun on me and the judge. I remember everything actually and that's part of what I'm dealing with emotionally."
Barber's aide it all happened so fast that there was no time to react and it's an image he can't get out of his head, "I saw the muzzle flash and I heard the pop, pop, pop of the bullets as he was spraying bullets around us."
That's when Barber was shot twice. Once in the face with the bullet exiting the back of his neck and the other in his leg that blew out a major vein.
Lying in a pool of his own blood, Barber quickly realized the severity of the situation, "Gabe Zimmerman, our outreach director, also was shot and he fell right between myself and the congresswoman and I saw him, his face looking at mine. It was pretty obvious he was dead as he fell."
Those horrific images are forever engrained in his mind like a nightmare haunting his thoughts daily, "when I have the dreams they're vivid and disturbing."
In addition to the nightmares, Barber also suffers from irritability, anger, depression, and a lack of patience. All classic symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, "PTSD is really like any other illness. There's no shame and really the stigma is what we make of it, not that it's something that should be stigmatized."
Barber is meeting with a counselor and using a form of psychotherapy called EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, "it hasn't stopped the dreams the dreams or stopped the remembering but it has given me a way to deal with emotion that comes up."
Support from his family, especially his wife Nancy of 43 years, is also a big part of Ron's healing process, "I knew it was going to be a huge emotional roller coaster and it was going to go on for a while and I wanted to be able to help him get some help from the very beginning."
Barber says the outpouring of love and support from total strangers is also helping, "this community responded in an amazing positive way, compassion, prayers, good will, meals, flowers, all of those things that told us the community really cares."
In the wake of the shooting, the Barber family has started the "Fund for Civility, Respect and Understanding," a project that will provide assistance to those who witnessed the shootings on January 8th and increase awareness of mental illness symptoms and treatment services.
There's a huge benefit concert to raise money for the Fund for Civility, Respect, and Understanding." Jackson Browne and Alice Cooper, in partnership with Danny Zelisko, have organized this concert for our community. It will be a healing and unifying event and will raise funds to sustain and build on the outpouring of good will and compassion that came after the shootings.
The concert is a fundraiser for the Fund for Civility, Respect and Understanding, a project of the non-profit Community Foundation for Southern Arizona. Set up by the family of Ron Barber, the fund will provide assistance to individuals who witnessed the shootings on January 8th, work with faith communities to promote civility and respect in public discourse, initiate anti bullying programs in schools and increase awareness of mental illness symptoms and treatment services.
Ron Barber, Daniel Hernandez, Gabe Zimmerman's mother Emily Nottingham, Mayor Bob Walkup and Lea Marquez-Peterson will speak at the concert. The audience will include shooting survivors, first responders, citizens who came to the aide of the victims and staff from UMC.
Tickets are $25, $45, $65, AND $95. They can be purchased by calling (800) 745-3000 or www.ticketmaster.com and all Ticketmaster outlets.
Donations to the Fund for Civility, Respect and Understanding are made by giving online at www.cfsoaz.org (click on the link to the Fund for Civility, Respect and Understanding).
Copyright KOLD 2011. All rights reserved.
