Vegas, survivor of the shooting: eyewitness memories

Фото: Depositphotos

2 October thriller Stephen Paddock shot people gathered at a country music festival from the 32 floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, killing an 59 man and injuring more than 500.

At the festivals there were thousands of people who managed to escape from a bullet, edition USA Today collected their stories.

“Bah! Bah! Bah! ”

Justin Zimmerman from Dexter, Iowa, was with a group of four friends in the middle of an open concert hall, about 100 meters from the stage.

“I left my friends to get a beer and at one point I heard “Bang!” Bang! Bah!” I thought it was a sound problem, but quickly realized it was gunshots,” Justin said.

“I just stood there, I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly I found myself on the ground. Every time he stopped shooting, people got up and ran. People were jumping over other people and things. It was a crowd of people running in panic, I couldn’t see anything in it. I was just speechless after what I saw, it won’t let me go until I return home and see my family,” the man admitted.

"It looks like a war zone"

A few minutes after Cole Watson, his wife and their children (9 and 5 years) decided to leave the festival, he heard sounds near the stage that were mistaken for fireworks. Then Watson heard people shouting that it was a “shooter”.

“When we left it was pure chaos. It looked like a war zone. Our main focus was on the children to keep them as far away from the situation as possible. Everyone tried to escape by falling to the ground. Every time the shooting stopped—it was like he was reloading his weapon or something—people would get up and run,” he said.

Watson said his children are too small to understand what happened, and also praised the Las Vegas police department.

"People hid under the tables"

Shelley and Joe Comfort were near the bar of the Delano hotel when the band suddenly stopped playing and ran off the stage.

“The SWAT team ran into the casino carrying machine guns. We were told to run away as quickly as possible because people were being attacked by a shooter. It was crazy. People were hiding under tables and crawling, trying to get out,” Shelley said.

"Blood was all over the elevator"

Maria Beth Stanfield was there with her friends on Sunday evening before heading to MGM Grandtwo blocks from Mandalay Bay.

“I was in a taxi, we were driving very slowly, so I paid the taxi driver and got out of the car. And a crowd of 500 people immediately attacked me. At first I walked at a normal pace. Then I heard people shouting, “Run!” I didn't have time to think about what was happening, so I just ran. I saw blood on people's clothes. When I got to my hotel, I wanted to take the elevator, but they turned it off - there was blood all over the elevator. I was waiting for the elevator to be cleared for further use by passengers,” Stanfield said.

"I want to go home"

Law enforcers woke Shambi Cooper, a businesswoman from Cocoa Beach, Florida, on October 2 at night to check her hotel room. Mandalay Bay Resort. Cooper did not hear the shots, she saw information about the shooting in 2: 30 in the morning when a friend wrote to her about it.

"They just said, 'Ma'am, we need to search your room.' I knew why they were there and I wasn't going to stop them. At the time, they were still looking for a possible accomplice and I didn't want to stop them from doing what they had to do," she said.

“I don’t see anyone outside, I don’t hear any sounds. It seems to me that I am alone in this place. I don’t like this, I don’t like all this, I want to go home,” the woman said about her feelings a few hours after the tragedy.

Country star Jake Owen: “It's getting faster and faster.”

The father of country musician Jake Owen said that his son stood by on the stage, watching the performance of Jason Alden. When the singer heard a noise reminiscent of shots, he thought it was the pyrotechnics used in the Aldan show.

“The shots got faster and faster, almost as if it was an automatic rifle. The bullets could be heard hitting the stage structure. Then people began to run away: in the hall and from the stage. I just ran like everyone else. At one point I was squatting next to a police car with about 20 other people—just people who had just come to the show. Everyone asked if everything was okay. Blood was visible on people. On the street I saw several people who looked like they had been killed,” the musician said.

“It feels heavy”

Paul Rothstein and Blythe Mendelssohn-Rothstein were near Caesars Palacewhen a cousin sent them a message about the shooting, unfolding one and a half mile from them. The couple was on the show Absinthe, and they were detained there until 2 in the morning.

“When you’re in this city now, it’s just in the air. Here you feel heaviness. We ended up walking a mile and a half to our hotel and it was empty. This is simply impossible to imagine during a trip to Vegas,” they said.

Among the witnesses of the tragedy were real heroes, writes “New time".

Photo: Twitter / @ byHeatherLong

The father of three children, Jonathan Smith, managed to save about 30 a man, until he himself was wounded in the neck.

A man celebrated his brother's birthday when the shooting occurred. He helped dozens of people leave the danger zone. Returning again and again, Smith continued to take people under cover until he himself was wounded.

The bullet hit Smith's clavicle, and while it remains there, doctors may decide to leave it there for life.

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