Las Vegas shooting victim throws out first pitch at Cubs game

PHOENIX – Las Vegas shooting survivor Jovanna Calzadillas was honored at the Chicago Cubs spring training game Tuesday, as she threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Joined by her family, Calzadillas received a standing ovation from the crowd and Cubs’ players when she was taken onto the field at Sloan Park in Mesa ahead of Chicago’s matchup with the San Francisco Giants.

Calzadillas and her husband, Frank, were at the outdoor Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas on Oct. 1 when a gunman at the nearby Mandalay Bay Hotel opened fire on concertgoers.

The shooting left 59 dead and hundreds more wounded, one of which was Calzadillas.

A bullet struck her in the head, piercing the left side of her brain, the side responsible for language and communication.

Calzadillas was rushed to a nearby Las Vegas Hospital where she was put on life support because she couldn’t breathe on her own.

Doctors called her prognosis “grim,” at one point recommending she come off life support.

But her husband knew that wasn’t the right choice.

“I had a dream that Jovanna visited me,” he said in January.

“She hugged me and kissed me, and she said, ‘Everything is going to be okay.’ I called her mom and I said, ‘We’re keeping Jovanna alive. She’s going to be alright.’”

She spent several weeks in Las Vegas before being transferred to the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix on Oct. 19.

She worked with physical therapists to regain speech and other motor skills over the course of four months.

In January, she was released and allowed to return home.

Her journey to recovery is still not over, but her strength and resiliency was on full display Tuesday night in front of 15,849 fans.

“I will not quit on them,” she said in January. “And I will not quit on myself.”

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Griselda Zetino contributed to this report.

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