Las Vegas Survivor Says Shooting Made Him a ‘Believer in God’
By Katie Yoder | October 2, 2017 5:37 PM EDT
According to one former agnostic, he survived the Las Vegas shooting for a reason – God’s reason.
On Monday’s CNN New Day, fill-in anchor John Berman interviewed 21-year-old Taylor Benge who attended the Las Vegas country music concert where a gunman ruthlessly killed at least 58 and injured more than 500 Sunday night. That event, Benge divulged, turned him into a “firm believer in God.”
At Berman’s request, Benge described the scene of the shooting rampage.
“It almost sounded like a firework or one of those things you pull the strings for,” Benge said of the gunfire. “And a man not even five feet away from me, I don't want to go into detail, but I don't think he was with us much longer after that because of a bullet wound to the head. But as soon as I saw that, then I knew something was wrong.”
Both he and his sister started running away from where they heard the shots.
Still, he admitted, “no matter which direction you went in, no matter where you took cover, there were at least two or three bodies that were part of it and you didn't know where you were safe.”
At one point he said, his sister “being as noble as she is,” “threw herself on top” of her brother and told him repeatedly, “I love you, Taylor, I love you.”
“I’ll never forget that,” he concluded.
Those events, he added, made him transition from a self-described agnostic to a believer in God.
“You just gotta to take it to God at that point and, you know, hope that you can make it and hope that you’re safe,” Benge continued. “And I know I can't speak for everyone but for me, I’m just, you know, I was agnostic going into that concert and I'm a firm believer in God now because there’s no way that, you know, all that happened and that I made it and I was blessed enough to still be here alive talking to you today.”
By Katie Yoder | October 2, 2017 5:37 PM EDT
According to one former agnostic, he survived the Las Vegas shooting for a reason – God’s reason.
On Monday’s CNN New Day, fill-in anchor John Berman interviewed 21-year-old Taylor Benge who attended the Las Vegas country music concert where a gunman ruthlessly killed at least 58 and injured more than 500 Sunday night. That event, Benge divulged, turned him into a “firm believer in God.”
At Berman’s request, Benge described the scene of the shooting rampage.
“It almost sounded like a firework or one of those things you pull the strings for,” Benge said of the gunfire. “And a man not even five feet away from me, I don't want to go into detail, but I don't think he was with us much longer after that because of a bullet wound to the head. But as soon as I saw that, then I knew something was wrong.”
Both he and his sister started running away from where they heard the shots.
Still, he admitted, “no matter which direction you went in, no matter where you took cover, there were at least two or three bodies that were part of it and you didn't know where you were safe.”
At one point he said, his sister “being as noble as she is,” “threw herself on top” of her brother and told him repeatedly, “I love you, Taylor, I love you.”
Those events, he added, made him transition from a self-described agnostic to a believer in God.
“You just gotta to take it to God at that point and, you know, hope that you can make it and hope that you’re safe,” Benge continued. “And I know I can't speak for everyone but for me, I’m just, you know, I was agnostic going into that concert and I'm a firm believer in God now because there’s no way that, you know, all that happened and that I made it and I was blessed enough to still be here alive talking to you today.”
