She narrowly escaped a shooting at Toronto a few months ago. But Jessica Ghawi’s fortunes were not as good this time when she was shot dead at one midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora Colorado. She is one of 14 who were killed by neuroscience PhD student James Holmes.

Jessica Ghawi, who goes by the name Jessica Redfield, is a 24 year old known sports anchor, a blogger and an active Twitter user. She was sending tweets up until the moment she sat down in the movie theatre. It was then that the room got filled with smoke, causing many of those inside to duck for cover as rounds were fired into the room.

Jessica’s friend, who was with her in the theatre, heard her scream as her lower limb received a round of bullets. He pressed on her thigh to control the bleeding but he was hit as well. He kept trying to control her bleeding until he didn’t hear her scream anymore. Jessica was gone. So he crawled out of the movie theatre and called her mother.

On the Toronto shooting that she escaped, Jessica Ghawi wrote:

“I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath.”

Her words resonate true today. It seems the Lebanese diaspora never manages to miss a tragedy. May she rest in peace.

Update: It seems Al Jadeed was mistaken. Jessica Ghawi is of Palestinian origins according to the Lebanese Consulate in the United States.