LOUISVILLE, Ky. — April 10, 2023 will be remembered in Louisville’s history as a day of great tragedy.
On the first floor of Preston Pointe, an iconic building in the downtown Louisville skyline, more than a dozen bankers gathered in an all-glass conference room for a Monday morning meeting.
"We were talking, laughing and we were joking with Josh Barrick, teasing him about his tan because he had just got back from vacation and the rest of us were pasty white and it was just a normal, Monday morning and everyone was in good spirits and going about life as normal,” Dana Mitchell remembered.
A 40-year veteran in the banking industry, Mitchell grabbed her coffee and picked a chair with her back to the hallway, but positioned in a way she could see down the hall.
"The room wasn't always full, but that morning it was full," she said. "That was the most we had had in a long, long time. I think there were 13 of us in the room that morning."
Mitchell said she isn't sure why the 25-year-old gunman, a fellow colleague, targeted their meeting.
"I don't know, I can't speak to his mind," she said. "I guess it was a captive audience. It was where the majority of the people were going to be and he knew that."
WARNING: The following contains graphic content that some readers may find upsetting. Reader discretion is advised.
An explosion of bullets
As the Monday meeting got underway, Mitchell noticed something unusual in the hallway.
"Something caught my eye," she said. "I looked over my shoulder and saw him in the hallway with a gun. I knew what kind of gun it was when I saw it--I recognized it. But I didn't automatically think he was going to use it."
But just seconds later, that's what happened.
The gunman fired a rifle at a coworker in the hall before taking aim at Mitchell and the conference room full of employees.
"I dove. I got on the floor and tried to get as far away as possible and just lay still. I was shot after I was on the ground. There was one person to my immediate left that ran, and he did get out. There was another who ran but didn't make it,” she said.
After being shot in the back, Mitchell hid under a table waiting for the shooter to walk away.
"I would hold my breath so if he did come back, he wouldn't see my breathing,” she said.
The gunfire lasted 20 seconds in the conference room, and for the survivors, the silence afterwards felt like forever.
"When I could hear gunshots elsewhere, that was easier for me. I felt safer. Because I could hear him shooting and I knew he wasn't there with us. When there was no gunshots and it was just quiet--that was more scary. Because I didn't know where he was. I kept thinking he's going to come back, he's going to come back. Of course--he never did,” she said.
The shooter died after an exchange of gunfire with Louisville Metro Police officers. The explosion of bullets could be heard across the building, including in the conference room.
Mitchell said it worried her, until the next voice she heard was a woman saying, "LMPD. We are here to help."
“[The officer] said can you walk? I said yes, I can walk. I can run out of here," she said.
First responders then helped Mitchell and the other survivors leave the room. She said they saw all five of her fellow coworkers who had been killed.
"Four were in the room. One was in the hall," she said. "We had to step over some of them. That was not pleasant."
Difficult path to recovery
After the shooting, Mitchell spent one night at the University of Louisville Hospital where doctors worked to remove the shrapnel from her back before she was released to recover at home with family.
Her wound was about eight inches long and recovery was difficult. Mitchell said the open wound got infected one week after she left the hospital, and it took about three months to heal.
That was the physical injury, and then there was the mental trauma. Mitchell said she turned to therapy early on.
"You just took it one day at a time," she said. "Trying to make something normal out of a completely abnormal situation."
She also started following the investigation into the mass shooting including the investigative findings, surveillance videos and even reading the shooter’s manifesto when it was released.
“Part of me was really hopeful I would get some kind of peace or closure, maybe some justification or reasoning. But it didn't," she said. "It was probably the most angry I had been because I didn't find what I was hoping for."
Mitchell said she has not had any communication with the shooter’s family, but stays in constant contact with her former coworkers who were in the bank that day.
“I cannot imagine not having some of those coworkers to sound things off of, and too -- a lot of times you don't even have to tell them you're having a bad day. You can tell," she said.
'Why am I the one?'
Beyond the physical pain, and grief, Mitchell said she is still incredibly impacted by guilt one year after the tragedy.
"Like why am I the one that gets to keep going and enjoy life, and they're not granted that opportunity?" she said.
Mitchell said she was very close with some of the victims including Dana Mitchell, Jim Tutt and Tommy Elliott.
"Tommy Elliott…I love Tommy. He would always give me grief about being short, which Tommy was not a tall man, so I would say, 'hello pot.' We would go back and forth and banter all the time. He was, he was a very special person,” she said.
Mitchell remembers Jim Tutt as an incredibly generous man, who was known for his homemade wine. She still had a bottle on display in her home.
Deana Eckert was a close friend, Mitchell said, calling her "a very bright person."
"You couldn't help but like her personality, she was very outgoing," she added. "That one was really, really tough."
Another loss from that day was the iconic building that housed her workplace.
"Preston Pointe was our home. I miss that building. Despite what happened there, despite everything with that--I miss it," Mitchell said. "When I drive past, it's a sense of loss or sadness because that's just something else that was taken from us that day."
Shay McAlister: "What was it like when you moved into the new building?"
"I'd rather not talk about that, if that's ok,” Mitchell responded.
The emotions are complicated. She is still healing from the pain and trauma, fighting fears in public and coping with immense loss.
At the same time, she said it’s never been so clear that life is an opportunity, an opportunity she feels lucky to have.
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