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Las Vegas shooting victim celebrates new baby one year later

Vista resident Kayla Mills was shot in Vegas
Posted at 6:11 PM, Oct 01, 2018
and last updated 2018-10-02 11:06:31-04

OCEANSIDE, Calif. (KGTV) - October 1, 2017, was the worst day of Kayla Mills’ life. She was enjoying the Route 91 concert in Las Vegas when the worst mass shooting in modern history took place.

Mills was shot near the hip and bleeding profusely, and good Samaritans rushed her to the hospital.

Her sister, Kimberly Kosaka, will never forget the phone call she received that night.

“Getting a phone call and hearing a lot of chaos and a lot of screaming and crying,” Kosaka said. “I remember hearing my sister say that she had been shot and she thought she was dying.”

Kosaka, along with her children and her mother, drove to Las Vegas that night to be with Mills in the hospital.

“I was saying, ‘You’re OK, you’re not going to die.’ But I really didn’t know,” Kosaka said.

This year, life has changed for the better.

October 1 will now be remembered as the day Mills prepared to give birth to her first child, Attley James.

“I was at the hospital a year ago and it was a very different feeling,” Kosaka said. “This is obviously a lot happier.”

This will be Kosaka’s first nephew.

“I’m very excited. I’m going to be an auntie today!” she said happily.

Kosaka is just thankful her sister is alive, saying, “I’m just so happy and grateful that she lived through this … and now she’s literally at the happiest stage of her life. Beautiful things can come out of tragedy.”

After hours in labor, Mills gave birth to 9-pound, 2-ounce Attley James at 6:07 a.m. on Oct. 2.