Madalena DeAndrea was working at UCLA in California in 2018 after finishing her degree at the University of Colorado Boulder. It was there she survived the terror of being part of a mass shooting, and now tries to help others.

She shared her story Thursday at the U.S. Secret Service Denver Field Office and National Threat Assessment Center Violence Prevention Symposium.

The night of Nov. 7, 2018, she and some friends went to Borderline Bar and Grille in Thousand Oaks, California, she said. DeAndrea had just learned the choreographed dance to a song she thought they would play and was excited to show it to her friends on the dance floor.

After the song, she left to grab some water, she said. A few minutes later, everyone in the bar began to hear popping sounds.

DeAndrea is the daughter of former Arvada Deputy Police Chief AJ DeAndrea, who had responded to several mass shooting events — including the Columbine and Platte Canyon High School incidents — while she was growing up. Her parents had always said her safety was her responsibility, and that she had to trust her own instincts if she ever found herself in a similar situation.

That night in California, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran shot into the crowd of about 300 people in the packed bar, killing 13 inside before shooting and killing himself. 

After the incident broke out, DeAndrea and several others hid in the establishment’s attic via a ladder in the kitchen instead of getting trampled while trying to escape through the building’s emergency exits like so many others had, she said. 

As she hid, she sent a text to her parents and sister back in Colorado: “Emily Keyes. I love U guys.” It was the name of the student killed in the Platte Canyon shooting and the same final text she had sent to her father before she was killed.

“Remember my background and childhood, those words had meaning,” DeAndrea said during her presentation Thursday. “I asked (my friends) to call my family’s home phone, and that’s what woke my parents up.”

From then, she and her dad began to text, with her telling him what was going on downstairs and him relaying to her what police were talking about over the radio, which he could hear through the 911 app, she said. At one point, she got a call from the local police dispatch, but hung up as she didn’t know if the shooter was still inside the building.

She had to give their hiding spot to police as they entered the building, she said. They had hidden in the attic too well.

DeAndrea’s father flew out to California later that morning, flying back to Colorado with her that day, she said. She spent the next 48 hours mostly sleeping at her childhood home in Coal Creek Canyon before agreeing to begin seeing a mental health specialist.

“Knowing that my dad was seeking mental health support after all these situations he responded to, it was normal for me my entire life,” DeAndrea said. “My dad was never doing it to relieve something that had happened, he was doing it so he could have a the 30-year law enforcement career that he had.”

Ultimately, DeAndrea said, the support system around her was one of the main reasons why she was able to process the event in a healthy manner.

“For whatever reason when we become adults, we think we don’t have the permission to bring people in and support us through bad things like this,” DeAndrea said. “I personally think it’s a cheat code to bring people in and help you navigate things so difficult, watch a pattern for you or have a special skillset in that space.”

The symposium, an all-day event on Thursday, featured several expert speakers in behavioral health assessment and management from the metro Denver area, according to a news release from the U.S. Secret Service. The event took place at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum in Aurora.