DENVER – For Joshua Nowlan, there are constant reminders of what happened inside a movie theater in Aurora on July 20, 2012.
Friday marks six years since the senseless attack, and Nowlan said these anniversaries are tough … but he’s finding ways to move forward.
“The tattoo is my personal memorial,” Nowlan said. “It shows people that I'm not afraid of what happened to me, and that I'm open to discuss it.”
Nowlan is one of the 78 people physically injured during the attack, and he says he can remember every detail of that night.
“Going through that night knowing all the details, remembering all the screams and all the horrors, and of course you also hear the movie still playing in the background,” he said.
Just before the shooting, Nowlan was sitting with his two closest friends Denise and Brandon, a married couple who had just celebrated their anniversary. They had seats in the upper section of the theater, five or six rows back near the middle of their row. Once the shooting began, they ducked behind the seats. Nowlan and Brandon used their bodies to shield Denise. Nowlan was shot twice, in the left leg and right forearm.
“I was able to see the shooter walking around shooting off his guns trying to find people to kill,” Nowlan said. “I know it was a matter of just minutes, but if felt like I was there for 30 plus minutes – even to an hour – it seemed like time stood still during the whole shooting.”
Once the shooting finally stopped, the lights turned on and first responders showed up. Nowlan said when the first police officer came to him, he told the officer to grab another more severely injured man next to him. The next officer helped Nowlan.
“I literally thought I lost my leg and my arm. Somehow they were still attached, but I was bleeding profusely,” Nowlan said. “And I just told him to grab my arm and pick me up. He grabbed my one good arm and I stood myself up on my one good leg, and we just walked right out. And I remember seeing all the bodies and all the blood and people still screaming and getting outside the theater.”
Nowlan was rushed to an Aurora hospital in a police cruiser. The single father of two young boys spent three weeks in the hospital.
“The first time they came to the hospital to visit me, it was a scary moment,” he said. “And seeing that look in their eyes when they see their father all completely bandaged up and tubes everywhere and wires… …it was really hard for them to see me like that, and it was really hard for me to see that in their faces.”
Nowlan says his injuries will be with him forever, and will continue to be constant reminders. And there are invisible wounds.
“When the anniversary date comes closer and closer, my PTSD starts to take over,” Nowlan said. “And I start thinking about the shootings, and the screams start getting louder in my head, and then I go through the visual steps in my head of where I was at.”
He also acknowledges some survivor’s guilt for the 12 people who did not survive.
Nowlan’s memorial tattoo includes 12 bats representing the 12 lost. He had the tattoo added last summer.
“Even though my injury is a constant reminder every time I look at it, now I have something here to… ...show that I moved forward,” he said. “It really helps me when I see it.... It gives me the extra strength to move forward.”
