(dramatic music) (birds chirping) - These are the stars that me and my friends have painted and when my friends came over, we'd sit down and paint and just talk and it was very therapeutic for me to just talk.

It made me feel happy.

It's very cathartic to just paint.

And I think it's, to me, a way of healing as a community.

Letting people know good people are here for other good people.

People who had received stars previous for something that happened in their community made stars and sent them to us in San Bernardino.

So we're sending to Orlando, sending, basically, hope.

(dramatic music continues) I never thought that this is where I would be this year.

Going to doctor's appointments and dealing with gunshot wounds that were caused by terrorists, because of what happened in December.

- Breaking news coming to us out of California.

San Bernardino, where we have the sheriff's office, confirming that they've had an active shooter.

- [Reporter] It happened in San Bernardino, a city of more than 200,000 people, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

- Several down in the conferences, several down.

We need medical aid.

- I realized that I was the first officer who was there.

- All I could think of is, today is not the day to make a mistake.

- I watched two of my coworkers die right with me.

I saw them take their last breath.

- It was one of the most horrific scenes I've ever seen in my life.

- Long hours of tension and terror that began with the country's latest mass shooting.

(intriguing music) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) - I've got three kids.

My oldest son is almost 27.

He's a professional golfer playing on the PGA tour in Asia.

My second son is 25 and he's a civil engineer with the county valet.

My daughter is 11 and goes locally here to school.

My husband is Jesus, he works here in town.

He's a civil engineer.

We've been married for almost 31 years and we've lived here in San Bernardino for almost 28 years now.

San Bernardino, though, has been hit hard by the recession.

- [Lisa] By the 80s and 90s, thousands of residents lost their jobs as the biggest employers moved out.

The 2008 recession hit the city hard.

San Bernardino became the poorest city west of Detroit.

And then as if things couldn't get worse, terrorists struck on December 2nd, 2015.

- I've had people tell me that if you could just take that day away, one awful day and the truth is, a bad thing happened to me on a good day.

- December 2nd started as any other day.

- We started equipment checkouts, running tools, going through our normal routine.

- I take my daughter, Ellie, to school from 7:30 to 7:50.

I'm the volunteer greeter at the school where I help kids get in and out of the cars when parents dropped him off then I went to work.

It was our general education meeting day where we have program updates.

We take pictures within our groups.

So we got up to take a picture and it was about that time where I heard banging on the door and that's when I saw someone come in with a gun and start shooting.

At first, I mean, I got down, but I thought this was some kind of drill.

As things were being shot and flying around, that's when it struck me it wasn't a drill and there was nothing really to cover us.

I was shot when I was down.

Whoever it was, went away and then came back and shot me again, basically, same location.

And the other people around me at the tree all died.

I was the only one who survived there.

- The engineer on my crew was out in the engine and he had come in and said they have a situation in the south end.

We switched to the police frequency and instantly we knew.

- They realized that I was the first officer who was there.

None of us had tactical helmets.

None of us had a rifle with us at the time.

You have a strong likelihood that you're going to engage and potentially be outgunned and potentially be shot, but we certainly were not gonna stand by outside while people were actively being injured and possibly killed.

- We tore out of the station and we knew that we were gonna go to a life-changing call.

All I could think of is today, today is not the day to make a mistake.

- When we had made our initial entry into the building, it was obvious that they were causing extremely devastating damage.

- I watched two of my co-workers die right with me.

I saw them take their last breath.

- I got on the radio, made contact with Loma University Hospital, 'cause all I could think of was the massive amount of potential injuries that were gonna impact this local hospital.

I wanna give you a heads up alert.

We have an active shooter situation in the south end of San Bernardino where it is now possible nine to 10 victims.

We'll advise once we're on scene, just prepare yourself.

- We had other medics who were on scene and although I still wasn't prepared to clear them in, they took it upon themselves just to enter and to start assisting with the extractions.

- As a tactical medic with the SWAT team, I could go into those hot zones and started triaging and I remember just going through the room and just go from one patient to the next patient to the next patient until I've triaged and treated over 30 patients in the room.

- And right away, they grabbed me and someone dragged me out to get me over to triage.

- I looked up and I see a wave of people just coming towards me.

- We knew that we had to make the quick impact on life-threatening injuries to sustain life, to get that patient from being treated to the hospital.

- I was taken out, they checked, did a pretty fast check and I was put in an ambulance.

- We got her prepped and put on our gurney and then in the back of the ambulance and off to Loma Linda we went.

- Loma Linda University, MR322.

- 322, you have here Mitch and Chandra, go ahead.

- A 50 year old female who was shot twice, once in the groin, once to the left thigh area.

Last BP was 60/40.

- When Julie came in, she was significantly injured.

She had two gunshot wounds.

She had free fluid in her abdomen, which indicated she was bleeding internally.

Where the explosion from the bullet went through was in multiple pieces.

One of our concerns was if she did survive, she wouldn't be able to walk after that.

We got blood transfusion started and she went to the operating room immediately.

- When Julie first came in, her life was definitely, we need to get into it, we need to stop this bleeding now.

We need to figure out what's going on now.

And I remember the surgeon saying that specifically.

No more wasting time, gown up.

The surgeons went into the abdomen and had to search.

Had to search for the bullets, had to search for entry, exit wounds, had to patch anything that could potentially be bleeding.

- The bullets, when they hit the human body, they're going faster than the speed of sound and it creates a huge amount of destruction to the tissues.

- The amount of blood that she had to have that day, we can pretty much considered black blood and it was just put in and put out, put in and put out.

- I knew we had a good team, so she had a good chance, but I would not have been surprised if with the number of injuries she had that she didn't survive.

- She had sent me a text saying that she had been shot.

I had no idea what happened to her.

I was in shock.

Just panicking wouldn't help anything.

So I was just trying to be as composed as I could.

Just try to deal one thing at a time.

First finding where she was without thinking anything more than just finding her.

The first place might be over to the Arrowhead Hospital.

I discovered that she wasn't there.

After that, I figured Loma Linda might be the next place they may take her because the proximity to the shooting.

- I got a call at one point in the OR room and it was downstairs where they were keeping the families and they just wanted to know which patient I had.

- Once I found her, the next step is hoping that she was alive.

Once I found out she was alive, it was a relief every time.

And then waiting on the condition of her injuries.

- When the surgeon made a comment saying, "I think we've got it.

I think we've got it.

Let's get some sutures and let's get her to recovery."

That moment gave you a moment of peace in the midst of the chaos.

- Around 11:30 that night, the same night of the shooting, we're allowed to go in and see her in the recovery room after surgery.

- One of the nurses said, "We need to just get your family to see you.

We're not supposed to let a lot of people in, but they just need to see you."

- She had a big smile on her face and welcomed my daughter with a smile and she cracked a joke.

- When my daughter saw me and I smiled at her and I made this, I don't know, some stupid joke.

You could see her know it was gonna be okay.

- I just felt like I had hope and I felt that it's gonna be okay.

And so we could work through it, whatever it is.

- Every single person that was helped out of that room, that made it into an ambulance or into a helicopter and made it to a hospital, survived, all 22 of them.

- If any of the critical patients that we had were on scene for more than five minutes, they would've been dead.

All their lives were saved in OR within minutes of arriving to the trauma center.

- And I was very amazed at how well our police forces, our medics, our physicians who were deployed with all these tactical units, all the work that they did definitely saved a lot of lives.

- It wasn't, but maybe an hour after we got back, we're back out in the city, running the city, going back out on fires and medical aids.

So the opportunity to really dwell or think or deal with anything just gets pushed back.

- In the moment, you can't really react emotionally.

It's hard to put someone on a ventilator and put a breathing tube in through tears.

You figure out a way to put it aside and deal with it later and you better deal with it and maybe not everybody does.

- Going home was nothing more than just getting a few hour sleep and waking up and coming right back in.

Laying there, as dog tired as you are, still laying there somewhat awake in bed and thinking this is actually happening.

- I remember just walking in the door and hugging my wife and it was a long hug.

I remember seeing my kids.

I just remember holding all three of them and just being thankful.

- Actually, just prior to going in, the last thing I did was ask God to just watch over my family.

(clears throat) First thing I did was I apologized to my wife and my kids when I got home.

I just apologized to them and we had a good cry together and just decompressed a little bit.

- [Lisa] Julie was in the hospital for a month and has endured four major surgeries.

She had an external fixator attached to her shattered pelvis for three months so that it could begin to heal.

10 months later, Julie has progressed considerably.

- Do you wanna go for walk?

- [Lisa] And has overcome many setbacks, yet she's still on the road to recovery.

The support from her family, friends and community have inspired her to move forward despite the constant pain she lives with.

- I got the idea to create a Stars of Hope walk, 'cause it's the street I walk on every day, but also lots of people from the community use the same route for their walks in the morning and their evenings and in the daytime also.

So I decided to create, I call it, my Walk of Hope and it's hope for San Bernardino and so along the street, I'm putting little Stars of Hope that I've painted.

A couple of them, I think, Ellie painted also and my son's girlfriends painted a couple.

That's the first one.

Be silly, be honest and be kind.

(inspiring music) I hope when people walk by, that they see them and it makes them think or it gives them a happy thought or maybe makes them just have a nice thought on their walk.

This one says, "The things you take for granted, other people are praying for."

This is fundamental to my way of life.

And that comes with gratitude for everything you have.

So things we take for granted, other people are praying for.

I know for me, I like to walk, because it's a chance for me to just think or think about things or solve all the world's problems.

So that's what inspired me and that's why I did it.

San Bernardino just needs hope to become a better community and a stronger community and a happier, healthier, and safer community.

So I'm hoping little by little, if it's something I can do, maybe it's something that is beneficial.

- We had so much support.

We turned into a national community almost instantly.

- This banner here is from our community and then this banner here is from our friends at Aurora Medical Centers.

It's signed by all of their staff.

So it's a great reminder to us of we're not the only ones who've gone through something like this.

It's a good morale booster for the staff that were here that day.

Just a reminder of the support that we had.

- After December 2nd was finished and wrapped, we're talking January, February, March, April, we still had to go up and down watermen lights and sirens for our calls and we had to drive by that location.

You can't help but think of the incident and the effect that it had, but on the other side, you got to see the community.

There wasn't a single time that we drove by there and there wasn't a mom and a child or a family or a group of people putting something on the fence.

There were people on the corner praying together.

There were prayer groups all the time.

It's beautiful to drive by something like that and see that strangers, absolute strangers felt impact, emotional impact from this incident and felt that they had to go down to this place.

And they had to give their thoughts and prayers to these people that passed and that were injured.

In these dark, dark times where you put the news on and there's tragedy everywhere, it's beautiful to see a human care about another human who they might not even know or have ever met.

- Some of the letters and some of the messages I got were, you could tell they were really heartfelt.

One in particular, a family from, I believe it was Michigan.

They sent me a rock and it was a polished rock and they just said thank you and we wanted to send you our state rock, because you seem to be rock solid and you're a rock for your community.

It's things like that that stop you.

It's just, wow.

- The events of 12/2 help unify the city around the sense that people care about us.

We're not abandoned.

For the president to come and spend time with us, for people all over the globe to write to us and to donate to us and to say we care deeply about your city and about how it goes in your future.

We received donations for the victims of this tragedy from people all the way to the Middle East.

The largest single donor to our funds was the local Muslim community.

We feel valued and that does a great deal to your mental health to create a sense that you have a future.

- So I've saved everything, all the cards and letters.

To me, I get emotional and overwhelmed at the goodness of people.

I mean that's, to me, the best thing is knowing people care.

I still have people telling me that I'm still in a prayer circle.

I tell them thank you, 'cause I always welcome prayers anytime.

Prayers are always accepted.

And even these people who just met people that were related to me, sent me these just nice cards, just nice things and she's never met me.

It's just someone who met my brother on a bike tour in Ireland last year.

Just things from, oh my gosh, all over the world came in.

(dramatic music) "I hope you can walk better soon."

And it happened to me and it changed things about me, but something else would've changed me otherwise.

If it wasn't that, it would've been something else.

That's how life works.

I don't want it to be my identity in the world.

(dramatic music continues) - We can't allow ourselves to stop living our lives.

We can't allow ourselves to be threatened or to be intimidated.

We need to hang on to not the devastation of the day, but the goodwill and the sense of community and the sense that we're in this together.

- I think that it's important that we as a community have to demonstrate that we emerge from this incident stronger than we were before.

I think it's incumbent upon us to find a way to make San Bernardino a better place so that when people do look back, they will say things like, hey, terrorism didn't work and here are these communities that suffered a terrorist attack and they all came back better, stronger, healthier communities in the future.

- We began to unify and we began to use the term SB Strong to identify the fact that we will not go darkly into this world of despondency.

We will work together as a community to recover from this tragedy.

- San Bernardino Strong is bouncing back fast.

The city is already on its way out of its bankruptcy issues.

This city is prepared to move forward.

- The world is looking at us and the world is affected by how America goes and our communities goes.

- Just lending a hand when somebody needs help, taking that extra effort to help them and if everybody helps one person, this is gonna be a terrific place to live.

- Number one, don't lose faith.

I'm a believer in humanity.

I'm a believer that there's a way to make things the best that they could possibly be.

I'm absolutely SB Strong.

- For those who survived, them and the heroes with them that day, when they share their story, it gives you hope that there is healing.

- If you put the energy towards things that are good and that make you happy and the people that are there for you and the love that you have, then those things become stronger.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (family chatting) (dramatic music continues) (family laughing) (dramatic music continues) (family chatting) - So in almost 36 years of marriage or 37?

(family laughing) I'm sorry, 32, I mean.

- 31.

- 31.

(family laughing) - It'll be 31 this month.

(laughing) - So in our 31 years of marriage, I've learned, I mean, aside from what we just went through, I've learned how unselfish you are and always thinking of others ahead of yourself.

I mean, that's maybe one of the reasons I love you so much is just that you are someone who really cares about people and along with that, I mean the recovery with your positiveness has been remarkable and an example for all of us.

I mean, I guess when I have a little bit of pain, I always think about should I be complaining?

(family chuckling) Anyways, I love you a lot.

- I love you too, sweetie.

- Hearing you talk about it when we have our little conversations when we're in the car.

If you can do it, if you can be positive with what has happened to you, then I don't have an excuse for not being positive.

- If you have a negative outlook on life, it's gonna be a lot harder to get through your day to day.

You put things in perspective and you set your priorities right and you know things will be all right as long as you work hard.

- You wish you have something different.

You aren't happy, you aren't satisfied.

If you're grateful for what you have, it brings you happiness and then you can accomplish other things and then be grateful for those things.

- When things happen to you, just because it happened, it's not the end of the world.

It's something tough that you can work through or use the support of others.

Just be strong and believe in what you, how you are and how you just look at things.

(speaking in foreign language) - In Venezuela, (speaking in foreign language).

(continues speaking in foreign language) (dramatic music) - It's very cathartic to just paint.

This has helped because I feel like it's going somewhere and I think it's, to me, a way of healing as a community, letting people know good people are here for other good people.

My daughter did, too, but then after the shooting in Orlando, she immediately did this one on Sunday morning that says, "Love wins," with the rainbow and wrote a letter to Orlando on the back, which is really, really neat.

I didn't know this letter was here till after I turned it over.

"I hope you can get past this and live your life.

So take my advice and smile."

That was her advice on here that she wrote that she is okay because she saw I was okay and that, she said my mom's attitude, she didn't mope or ignore it, but she never let it define her life.

(dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) - [Voiceover] This program was made possible by Ed and Ann Zinke, Versacare, George and Joan Harding.