San Diego woman shot in the eye in Las Vegas massacre remains in a coma

A 27-year-old San Diego woman who lost an eye in the mass shooting Sunday in Las Vegas remains in a coma and is in critical condition, a family friend said.

Tina Frost, an accountant with Ernst & Young in San Diego, was attending the country music festival with her boyfriend when a gunman opened fire from the nearby Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. The shooting by Stephen Paddock, 64, left 59 people dead and more than 500 injured.

Frost, who attended the concert with a group of nine friends, was shot in her eye.

“She is stable. She is still very critical but she’s stable,” said family friend Amy Klinger, who lives in Maryland, where Frost grew up.

Frost’s boyfriend, Austin Hughes, scooped her up, carried her about 300 yards and helped get her into a pickup truck that was rushing injured people to the hospital. “He was with her, and he was her hero that night,” Klinger said.

Frost underwent three hours of surgery and doctors removed her right eye, she said. “She lost part of her skull, but that has allowed for her brain to swell, which is what they look for in head trauma,” Klinger said.

A GoFundMe page set up to cover expenses her family incurs as they support Frost had raised more than $290,000 by Wednesday evening.

The family was told there was no additional swelling in her brain after the first day, which is a good sign. Frost also is reacting to pain as nurses and doctors work on her, Klinger said.

In an update posted on the GoFundMe page, Frost’s mother, Mary Watson Moreland, wrote that doctors hoped to lower the amount of ventilator support to test if she can breathe on her own. “The doctors explicitly expressed to us that it is very common for head trauma patients to have a recovery that ebbs and flows; we may see improvement one day, then none the next,” Moreland wrote.

In an earlier update, Frost’s mother said the family wouldn’t know “how bad the brain damage is” for several days.

Frost grew up in Crofton, Md., and moved to San Diego about five years ago. She played soccer at Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina.

Klinger said the accounting firm sent a representative to Las Vegas who has been helping Frost’s parents with arranging accommodations and meals and handling other issues that arise.

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com

Kucher writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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