Couple Survives Las Vegas Shooting, Dies in Car Crash Two Weeks Later

In a devastating twist of fate, a California couple that survived the mass shooting in Las Vegas on Oct. 1 died in a car crash weeks later just a half-mile from their home.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Dennis Carver, 52, was driving home with his wife, Lorraine, 54, on Oct. 16 when their Mercedes somehow drove off the roadway while going around a curve and crashed into two brick pillars. The car went up in flames, according to the California Highway Patrol, instantly killing both passengers.

In the weeks before their death, the Carvers’ friends and family say they had actually been at peace and enjoying newfound happiness following the shooting thanks in large part to the outpouring of support from their community.

Related: Meet the Amazing Dogs Who Flew to Las Vegas to Comfort Mass Shooting Survivors

“After the shooting, they heard from all of the people they cared about most. They were so happy,” Brooke Carver, the couple’s eldest daughter told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “The last two weeks of their lives were really just spent living in the moment.”

She further explained her parents’ incredible survival story from that horrific night in Las Vegas, telling the Review-Journal how her father heroically jumped onto her mother’s body to shield her from oncoming bullets. When he heard the bullets stop, her father pulled her mother up and ran with her across the field to escape.

And one week after the car crash, the Carvers’ children got another surprise from their parents: their father’s phone.

According to Brooke, her father had lost it during the Las Vegas shooting and the FBI had only then gotten around to sending it back.

“We’ve found some peace in knowing that our parents just loved each other so much that they had to go at the same time,” Madison, the Carvers’ 16-year-old daughter, told the Review-Journal. “They couldn’t live without each other.”

The couple, their children said, had been married for 22 years.