10-year-old shot after Super Bowl rally struggling to get nightmares out of his head

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (KCTV) - Samuel Arellano lifted his t-shirt at his grandpa’s house in Kansas City, Kan., on Friday to show a bandage where a bullet grazed him, hitting bone, barely missing his lung.

He had no pain, he said, but he is suffering in other ways.

“I can’t sleep,” the 10-year-old said. “I get dreams, like flashbacks about what happened.”

His grandfather, Victor Salas, Sr., also struggles to get the sounds and images out of his mind: hearing the gunshots, and seeing adults and children running scared.

Wednesday’s Super Bowl victory rally was not the first the pair had attended. They went last year too.

“Mi favorito,” his grandpa said of the team he’s been cheering on for 16 years.

This year, they were ed by Samuel’s uncle, Victor Salas, Jr., and his cousin, also 10 years old. Samuel’s aunt drove them and dropped them off.

“We had to walk a lot,” recalled Salas, Jr. “But it didn’t even feel like it was too long, because we were looking and taking pictures and eating hot dogs.”

“It was fun,” Samuel said, “until the shooting happened.”

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They dropped to the ground when they heard the gunfire. Samuel hid behind a trash can. He wasn’t sure where the rest of his family was. He lifted his arm to shield his eyes from the sun. That’s when he felt a stabbing pain in his side.

He told the others he’d been shot. But he wasn’t bleeding. They thought his pain was from being stepped on. He had been stepped on. His uncle was worried there would be more shooting. His first concern was to get them out.

“It’s okay, mi hijo,” he repeated. “Don’t worry. We’re going to get out of here first.”

When they got back to the home of Samuel’s dad, next door to his grandpa’s house, they lifted his shirt higher and saw the wound. They called 911. Samuel said it took an hour to get to the hospital because of all the traffic. He was scared initially but calmed down when he learned his lung wasn’t hit. He was released from the hospital Wednesday night.

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Salas, Sr. teared up when he talked about what he re most – the good or the bad? What sticks with him, he said, is the woman who died, Lisa Lopez-Galvan. She’s not part of his family, but it strikes him that it could have just as easily been his family and that she lost her life doing the same thing they were doing: celebrating the team. It makes him value life more than ever.

Samuel plans to return to school on Tuesday when they go back in session after a three-day hiatus. Friday, he was able to sleep without nightmares for the first time since that day, when he took a long nap during the day.

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