Bzz. Bzz. Bzz.

Natalie Bruzda’s phone vibrated on her night stand. It was around 5 a.m. when she groggily flipped it over to see who was calling. It was an old friend from Waynesburg University, Associate Director of Alumni Relations Vikki Beppler, who she hadn’t talked to in a while.

“I thought maybe it was a butt-dial, so I turned it over and went back to bed,” Bruzda said.

Two hours later, she woke up to a slew of text messages from friends and family overloading her lock screen. The most common message: “Are you OK?”

Still confused, she unlocked her phone and immediately went to Twitter. That was when she first saw the headlines: 58 people killed, 489 people injured, largest shooting incident in U.S. history.

***

Bruzda moved to Las Vegas with her husband almost two years ago. Prior to the move, she lived in Southwestern Pennsylvania for her entire life. She has been a journalist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a major daily newspaper in Las Vegas, for the past year and a half covering higher education.

She first realized her passion for writing at her alma mater, Waynesburg University.

“When I first went to Waynesburg, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do,” Bruzda said. “I started as a broadcast [journalism] student, but then I transitioned to writing and I fell in love.”

Bruzda ended up graduating with a B.A. in Electronic Media and Print Journalism. She worked at various newspapers and received an M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications before moving to Las Vegas, which was something she always dreamed of doing.

“I kind of always thought I would want to branch out and not live in southwestern [Pennsylvania] my whole life,” she said. “My now-husband’s family lives out in this area, so we thought we would branch out and see what happened.”

***

After reading the news the morning after the Oct. 1 shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, Bruzda immediately got ready to head into work for the Review-Journal as fast as she could. 

“As soon as I arrived, I immediately asked a colleague what I could do to help, and I started making phone calls,” she said. “Everything happened so fast.”

Because she was asleep when the news originally broke out, she admits she felt useless when the time came to actually report.

“I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, as a lot of the colleagues were already working overnight,” said Bruzda. “I just wanted to know how I could contribute in the best way possible.”

She ended up covering a candlelight vigil Monday night for the victims of the Las Vegas shooting, which she said helped put everything into perspective.

“It was amazing to see how many people came,” Bruzda said. “I want to say there were over 300 candles burning, but they eventually ran out, so people started to use their light on their phones.”

***

It didn’t hit Bruzda until Tuesday morning.

She was driving to work when she realized one of her duties that morning was to call and identify the victims and verify their identities. She had to pull over to cry. The crying continued when she walked into the Review-Journal office and sobbed at her desk to the point where three of her co-workers had to comfort her. At that point, she was broken.

“Talking to these victims’ families and asking them about their loved ones who just died…it was too much for my heart,” Bruzda said.

As a journalist, Bruzda tried to remain objective and professional, but she could only take so much.

“I am trying to not focus so much on my own feelings and know that I am doing this because it needs to be done,” she said. “I want to tell their stories because their stories are the ones that are the important ones.”

After noticing her grief, Bruzda said her editor recommended that she relax and try not to look at shooting-related articles online when she gets home, but she said for her, that’s not easy.

“It’s hard for me to turn off my phone,” she said. “I just can’t look away.”

For Bruzda, the hardest moment of the week was Wednesday. She spent her day talking to the aunt of an 18-year-old girl who was injured during the shooting at the country music festival. Bruzda has two younger sisters—one 16 years old, the other 21.

“Just thinking about how young they are, and how my 21-year-old sister loves country music…it could have been them,” she said.

***

Among the chaos and heartbreak, Bruzda has found her strength in her support system.

“I’m so thankful for the people who were calling to make sure I was OK, even from across the country at Waynesburg,” she said. “I know other people did the same thing for others at the [Review-Journal]. I am so thankful for that.”

But as for her biggest motivation? Good journalism. 

“Almost all of us have gone hours without sleep, making sure we have the facts right,” Bruzda said. “I wish people knew all of the hard work that we at the newsroom do. We put our best foot forward every day simply to give a voice to the voiceless.”