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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Yeah, we have friends who are from Southern California that meet with them every once in a while for music shows, typically country shows, and we're there to go with them. | |
| At the beginning of the concert, I saw the footage where everybody sang God Bless America. | |
| They had their cell phones out, and it looked like a wonderful, unifying type of event. | |
| It gives me chills every time I see that footage. | |
| And it seemed like it started out as just a very tremendously good night. | |
| Everybody's having a wonderful time. | |
| Where were you when the shots rang out? | |
| What were you thinking? | |
| And then tell us what happened after that. | |
| The lights came on and they sang God Bless America. | |
| That was big and rich and they were doing a salute to the veterans and the first responders, which, you know, there's probably at least 20 or 30 percent of the crowd was veterans. | |
| Active, first responders, you know, and just phenomenal people in that crowd. | |
| It was just a beautiful cross-cut section of America out there, and just great people. | |
| And we were hanging out with friends. | |
| There was people all around us. | |
| We were at the barrier that divides the VIP section from the general admission side. | |
| We were just tired, and we were staying on the VIP side because it was closer to our seats. | |
| That was backed up against the fence that divided the musicians up against the barrier, watching the stage, watching the screens. | |
| And you hear the first couple of pops go off, and I hear people say, hey, it must be fireworks. | |
| Fireworks. | |
| It does kind of sound like fireworks, but it's no black cat pack I've ever set off. | |
| I mean, it didn't go fast enough, and it was different. | |
| Aldine actually stopped for like a half a second. | |
| And then he kept playing because, you know, I don't think anybody knew what it was. | |
| And so he kept playing. | |
| Within five to ten seconds later was when he stopped playing and ran off the stage. | |
| At that point, you hear a long burst. | |
| And I saw a spark off the top of the screen where that was, you know, the screens that are on the two sides. | |
| On the right side screen, I see a spark. | |
| And then I look down and Jason Aldean is gone. | |
| I mean, he's running as fast as he can. | |
| And at that point, you realize this is real. | |
| I'm turning around looking at the direction of Mandalay Bay because you're starting to hear what sounds, and my first impression is, and other people I've asked afterwards, that were on that side. | |
| You know, you hear different things on different sides because the echo and just the acoustics of the scenario. | |
| It sounded like a gang battle. | |
| It sounded like overlapping fire shooting. | |
| And there was fire, but the first fire that everybody heard that they're talking about in the distance. | |
| That was in a different spot. | |
| That's why nobody really... | |
| I mean, yes, the music was playing, but it sounded like it was farther away. | |
| As we make it under the stage, about halfway down the stage, the shooting stops. | |
| That was probably the 11th minute, 9th, 10th, 11th minute, whatever that was. | |
| It felt like an hour. | |
| We make it out to the other end, and we run away. | |
| And you start to hear people scream, there's a shooter on Luxor, there's a shooter on Mandalay, there's a shooter on Tropicana. | |
| Nobody knows. | |
| And nobody in that crowd would know where they are because most people, they had no idea where the shots were coming from. | |
| The fact that the police weren't moving on anything tells me that they felt like they were multiple. | |
| You know, there were multiple shooters because they were all down behind that masonry wall about 30 yards in front of us where we were towards the strip. | |
| That six-foot, five-foot masonry wall ran down. | |
| It was one of the dividers on the entrance to the concert. | |
| I'm waiting for somebody to come through that entrance because it sounds like they're on the ground. | |
| But in the beginning, there was just so many where the shots did overlap. | |
| That's what I felt like. | |
| You know, there's a shot in the distance and then the overlap and that first two or three bursts that we're getting out like the 11th or 12th minute and we get out the backside and go towards Tropicana, in between Tropicana and the Hooters Casino. | |
| And we're just sprinting because at that point I'm like, I've got to get you out of here. | |
| People are saying there's other shooters here, other shooters there. | |
| We find a... | |
| What looked to me like an Uber or Lyft driver in the parking lot. | |
| And this gentleman from Ethiopia. | |
| And I asked him, are you working? | |
| He goes, yeah, I just got out from underneath my car. | |
| He was, what, a half mile away. | |
| And he was hiding under his car at that point. | |
| He got out. | |
| He took us. | |
| And we started praying with him. | |
| Strong Christian man. | |
| He got a call from his fiancée while we were in the car. | |
| And she was a nurse at UMC. And this is minute 15, probably. | |
| She's telling him on his phone and, you know, it's on speaker, that, look, there's already multiple casualties at the hospital, at UMC, at that point. | |
| And you're hearing this as, wow. | |
| Yeah, and so, until we hear that, I don't know what happened behind us. | |
| And then my wife tells me later, she said, yeah, I saw people dropping. | |
| I never saw that. | |
| You know, all I thought was there's still active shooters out there coming in. | |
| And, you know, we're sprinting at that point, which most people. |
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