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A Year Later, Recovery Continues for Las Vegas Shooting Victim

As the anniversary of the shooting approaches, one victim remains strong and is only getting stronger

Kristina Staples was the first in surgery and the second to last to be released from Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, where so many victims were taken after a gunman opened fire on a crowd on Oct. 1, 2017.

It is in that hospital where her husband finally located her. He has been at her side ever since, along with her stepmother, who works for the LA County Sheriff's Department, and her dad, a former captain for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

With the one-year anniversary of the Las Vegas shooting approaching, "Krissy" and her family are focused on the future. They are able to do so because of her remarkable fight to survive.

"She's a savage," Daniel Staples, her husband, says. "I wouldn't be here. She's a savage."

When asked what keeps her going, Kristina Staples has a simple answer: "My baby." Her daughter Harper Lee was only a year-and-a-half at the time of the shooting.

Greg Terrill, Staples' father, spoke with NBC4 last October, when his daughter was still on life support. At the time he had been told that she might not make it through the night.

But Kristina Staples survived and has documented her recovery on social media. She's been given the label "Krissy Strong" for the remarkable attitude she's displayed in posts along the way, post like the smiling selfie she shared from her hospital bed as she waited for a portion of her skull to be replaced with a prosthetic.

All of this to recover from a night she can't recall.

"She doesn't remember anything," her husband says. "Thank God."

The couple was together when Jason Aldean took the stage. She wanted to get closer to the stage. He watched her disappear into the crowd just before a sound he immediately recognized as gunfire filled the air. He didn't see her again until he found her in the hospital, listed as an anonymous Jane Doe.

"I'm a blessed man," he says. "We're blessed people to all be here and making a comeback is something else."

As the anniversary of the shooting approaches, "Krissy" remains strong and is only getting stronger.

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