A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
It's been six months since the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade left one person dead and 24 injured. Nearly half of those injured were under 18. Here's Peggy Lowe, from member station KCUR.
PEGGY LOWE, BYLINE: There were a million people at the parade last February, and 15-year-old Mireya Nelson was one of them. She begged her mom to let her skip school and go with her friends. Her mom relented and suggested the teenagers should leave early, but they didn't take that advice. They missed the parade, and Mireya says being caught in the crowd was kind of a bummer.
MIREYA NELSON: Oh, it was boring. We were just stuck in between so many people the whole time. Then when we got out, I got shot.
LOWE: A bullet grazed her jaw and hit her left shoulder, breaking it. She crawled to a nearby tree and sat up against it.
MIREYA: Actually, I didn't know where I got shot at at first. I just saw blood all on my hands.
LOWE: Her wounds healed surprisingly quickly. By April, the only visible indication of her injuries was a scar on her face. She calls it a dent.
MIREYA: It feels bumpy. Like, the scar is bumpy, and I could feel the scar tissue. I don't like it.
LOWE: Mireya tried going back to school after the parade.
MIREYA: It was weird. Everyone, like, looked at me differently now, like I was - they looked at me like they cared now, like they all cared once something happened.
LOWE: She tried online classes. That didn't work out, either. Other children who survived the parade shooting also struggle with emotional scars. There's been little research on the long-term effects of gun violence on kids, but one study suggests the harm is pervasive. It found significant increases in pain, psychiatric disorders, substance abuse and medical spending. Patty Davis, a therapist at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, says it was the deliberate nature of the gun violence at the parade that causes many of these kids to worry it will happen again.
PATTY DAVIS: So not just an accidental trauma, but a trauma that was perpetrated for violent purposes.
LOWE: Davis says even kids who were present but not shot still flinch at abrupt, loud noises like sirens, crowds and fireworks. Mireya Nelson's mom, Erika, says that's a familiar worry. She watches for anything that might trigger her daughter, like the afternoon they were about to leave a dance recital, and there was a sudden loud boom.
ERIKA NELSON: She dropped low to the ground, and then she jumped back up and said, oh, my God. I thought I was getting shot again. And people looked around, 'cause they were like - she said it so loud.
LOWE: Erika quickly comforted her.
DAVIS: I was like, Mireya, shh. It's OK. You're all right. They dropped a table. They're just moving stuff out. It was an accident.
LOWE: Erika got Mireya into therapy. She's encouraged because Mireya wanted to go back to school, and she has. Still, Erika is wary. She says Mireya told her there's a chance she could be shot again, at school, because schools get shot up a lot these days. Erika said she could only reply, we can't think like that.
For NPR News, I'm Peggy Lowe in Kansas City.
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