Today we’d like to introduce you to Chantal Monfort and Austin Monfort.
Chantal and Austin, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
October 1, 2017, was a life changing day for almost anyone who loves country music as much as I do. 58 families lost loved ones and their lives were forever altered. As traumatic and terrifying as the mass, casualty shooting at Route 91 was, that was the event that I met the love of my life, Austin, at. He literally, saved my life. I met Austin the night before the shooting at Gilley’s Country Bar. We chatted and flirted, exchanging numbers. The next day, we arranged to meet and watch the concerts together. Little did we expect that in a very short time, we would be running for our lives. When the shooting started, we both hit the ground. Austin’s eyes locked on mine. He held my face, kissed me and said, “I’m going to count to five. Get up and run!” He grabbed my hand and we ran! We jumped in the first cab we found. Two other ladies also jumped in our cab, one of which had been shot. The cab raced us all to the hospital. Six weeks later, Austin came to Canada to see me and meet my friends. Since then, six weeks is the longest we have gone between visits, either me going to the US or him coming to Canada. We have met our families and are planning our lives together. Currently, we have gotten approved for our K1 Visa and we just moved Chantal from Canada to California. November 1st we got legally married at the court house for visa purposes. We have a big wedding planned where it all started in Las Vegas on May 8th, 2020. We are forever grateful to have each other to lean on during hard days. From this experience, we have learned to always try and stay positive and live our best life. We couldn’t be happier to be doing that together after two years of long distance.
Has it been a smooth road?
We both know that we were meant to meet each other. The road would have been extremely difficult had we not of had each other by our sides. We both have gone through the same thing, and it helps when one of us is feeling off and needs to talk about it. We lean on each other during hard times, and always try to focus on the positive, and live our best life for the people that are not able to do so.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
We do not have a business, rather the Instagram blog account. We created the Instagram page as a platform to share our story. Most stories from that horrible night and dark and negative, and we just wanted to put a smile on people’s face while reading about that night. Everyone has a different healing process and we wanted to share ours. We never once wanted to let evil win, we keep going to country concerts and festivals and just keep enjoying our lives.
- Instagram: @tragedytolove
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