The unending tragedy of Sutherland Springs: Life goes on, but for some shooting victims, wounds and losses remain

David Colbath visits the church where he was shot nine times.
It now serves as a memorial to the dead. (Photo by Lisa Krantz, The Washington Post)

On a quiet Sunday morning in November 2017, the First Baptist of Church of the rural hamlet of Sutherland Springs, Texas, was filled with worshipers. Around 11 a.m., Devin Patrick Kelley entered the church, "Wielding a Ruger AR-556 rifle, fired 450 military-grade bullets inside the church within minutes. . . . Over two dozen parishioners were killed," report Silvia Foster-Frau and Holly Bailey of The Washington Post. "Twenty others were wounded, sentenced to lives of unending pain and illness."

A 25-year-old woman survived the attack but now struggles to live. "Multitudes of purple freckles dot Morgan Workman's legs, arms, chest and cheekbone — tiny shards of metal from bullets and shrapnel that struck her as she worshiped in her church more than five years ago," the Post explains. "The fragments are leaching lead. Workman suffers from toxicity symptoms, including body pains, fatigue, depression — and has been told by doctors that she probably can't have a baby. . . . Workman was shot twice."

Entire families were decimated. "John Holcombe and his now-12-year-old daughter, Evelyn, cling to each other for support. His pregnant wife, Crystal, had shielded Evelyn from the gunman and was killed along with Evelyn's three siblings and grandparents," the Post reports. Rusty Duncan, a paramedic who happened to be driving by and was one of the first responders, described the scene to the Post, "It was like walking into a war zone where everyone was already dead. . . . It looked like a bomb went off in there. . . Just pieces of people everywhere."

"David Colbath was shot nine times in the arm, leg and back. He recalled needing six surgeries in the weeks after the shooting, as doctors decided which bullet fragments to remove and which were buried so deep they were better left inside him," the Post reports. "He takes eight to 12 ibuprofen pills a day, he said, in addition to a handful of Tylenol at night." Colbath told the Post, "I've normalized pain every night. I've normalized pain every day. I'll never be normal again."

Life goes on, but will never be the same. "Five years on, many in the working-class town of 600 — nestled in the dusty-road countryside an hour southeast of San Antonio — still attend services every Sunday. They pray in a new church built next to the old one. The sanctuary, funded by donations from around the country, has fortified walls and security cameras," the Post reports. "Many of the congregants — in addition to those in the church's new security team — carry guns on their hips for protection. . . . Children hobble through the pews with leg braces. Men carry colostomy bags that sometimes leak. Some, like Workman, are marked by sprays of odd-looking freckles. . . . Every Sunday, they chime a bell in the church's tower where 25 portraits of those lost hang high, along with an image of angels to honor Crystal's unborn child."

After the shooting, professionals assessed the combined carnage of a killer's malice and his choice of weapon. "Kelley stormed the church and stalked the aisles, shooting people at point-blank range. He fired 196 times inside the church in 16 separate bursts. . . . The dead ranged from age 1 to 77," the Post reports. "Terry Snyder, a longtime Texas Ranger among the first on the scene, later described seeing victims where bullets had 'disintegrated the skull' — including a toddler's." Snyder told the Post, "Even the survivors, the wounds that I saw … it was unbelievable, just the damage the bullet would cause." 

Update:
The Justice Department has reached a $144.5 million settlement with the surviving family members from the Sutherland Springs massacre, reports Glenn Thrush of The New York Times. The Texas church shooting killed 26 people and "lead to an acrimonious legal battle in which the government claimed it was not liable for its failure to update the national firearms background check system. . . . Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has signed off on the deal, which lawyers in the Justice Department’s civil division negotiated with lawyers representing the families of victims and survivors. . . . The settlement is among the largest of its kind, exceeding previous ones the department reached over mass shootings that stemmed from the government’s failure to take steps to prevent mass shootings by sharing intelligence and other information that might have been used to stop them."