Super Bowl parade shooting survivors await promised donations while bills pile up

This is a KFF Health News story.Abigail Arellano keeps her son Samuel's medical bills in a blue folder in a cabinet above the microwave.Even now, four months after the 11-year-old was shot at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade, the bills keep coming.There's one for $1,040 for the ambulance ride to the hospital that February afternoon.

Another for $2,841.17 from an emergency room visit they made three days after the shooting because his bullet wound looked infected.More follow-ups and counseling in March added another $1,500."I think I'm missing some," Arellano said as she leafed through the pages.MORE: Medical debt in US associated with worse physical and mental health, premature death: Study The Arellanos are uninsured and counting on assistance from the fund that raised nearly $2 million in the aftermath of the shooting that left one dead and at least 24 other people with bullet wounds.

She keeps that application in the blue folder as well.The medical costs incurred by the survivors of the shooting are hitting hard, and they won't end soon.The average medical spending for someone who is shot increases by nearly $30,000 in the first year, according to a Harvard Medical School study.

Another study found that number goes up to $35,000 for children.Ten kids were shot at the parade.Samuel Arellano stands with his parents, Abigail and Antonio, outside their home in Kansas City, Kansas.Bram Sable-Smith/KFF Health NewsThen there are life's ordinary bills -- rent, utilities, car repairs -- that don't stop just because someone survived a mass shooting, even if their injuries prevent them from working or sending kids to school.The financial burden that comes with surviving is so common it has a name, according to Aswad Thomas of the nonprofit Alliance for Safety and Justice: victimization debt.

Some pay it out-of-pocket.Some open a new credit card.

Some find help from generous strangers.Others can't make ends meet."We're really broke right now," said Jacob Gooch ...