LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – A former UNLV staff member and December 6th shooting survivor is now in the ICU after most of suffering burns to most of her body. Her family says if her neighbor had not intervened, she would not have survived.
Ailisha Vaughn left UNLV after the mass shooting took the lives of three faculty members just over a year ago. She is now at Sunrise Hospital just a couple miles from the school recovering from yet another life-changing trauma.
“Ailisha is a warrior, and she is a fighter,” shared her sister Aileen Cunningham. Vaughn was cooking in her Henderson apartment in Green Valley when a grease fire got out of control igniting the entire kitchen.
“She ended up catching on fire from the top of her head to below her knees,” Cunningham described. Cunningham was on the phone with her sister when it happened.
“I can’t really articulate how traumatic it was to hear…saying, ‘Aileen, I am on fire!’ and I can’t help her,” Cunningham recounted. A neighbor rushed to her rescue likely saving her life.
“I want to tell him thank you…I consider him an angel,” Cunningham contended.
Cunningham and her other sister flew in the next morning to be with Vaughn. The sisters are triplets. They have been at her bedside ever since and said they have not had a chance to meet her neighbor but hope they can soon and thank him in person for saving her life.
Vaughn is also a bone cancer survivor. After the fire, she was placed in a medically induced coma for days but is now awake and even talking.
Her road to recovery will be long. Her family has started a fundraising account. Learn more here: GoFundMe for Ailisha
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