Telemachus Orfanos was one of 12 people killed when a gunman entered a country bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., and started firing randomly.
The 27-year-old, nicknamed Tel, had previously escaped a similar situation just over one year ago while attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival – when a gunman opened fire on the crowd, killing 58 and injuring hundreds of others.
The Ventura County Star reported that Orfanos had been drafted by paramedics in Vegas to help injured victims.
Telemachus had served in the U.S. Navy for two and a half years, the Star reported. He had a thick beard, an easy smile and a gladiator helmet tattoo.
Orfanos’ mother Susan Schmidt-Orfanos confirmed he that her son survived Vegas only to die inside Borderline, less than 10 minutes from his home.
Ventura County sheriff officials said Ian David Long entered the Borderline Bar and Grill at 11:30 on Wednesday night, and fired indiscriminately into the crowd.
“Here are my words: I want gun control,” said Schmidt-Orfanos, her voice shaking with grief and rage. “I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts.”
She said she wanted Congress “to pass gun control so no one else has a child that doesn’t come home.”
Other survivors of the Vegas mass shooting at the country festival were also at the country bar in Thousand Oaks.
“It’s the second time in about a year and a month that this has happened. It’s a big thing for us,” Nicholas Champion told CBS, explaining he was with several people who were also with him in Las Vegas.
“We’re all a big family and unfortunately this family got hit twice.”
Other Vegas survivors said Borderline was a “place of healing” for them after the massacre.
“For many of us, it was seeing each others’ faces in the bar again that brought us a huge sense of relief,” Katie Ray said in an interview with HuffPost.
“It’s too close to home,” Vegas survivor Brendan Kelly told ABC News of the California shooting.
“Borderline was our safe space after, for lack of a better term, it was our home for the probably 30 or 45 of us who are all from the greater Ventura County area who were in Vegas.”
— With files from Maham Abedi and the Associated Press
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