A Wallaceburg couple is ‘lucky to be alive’ after the massacre in Las Vegas last weekend.
Dirk De Naeyer and his wife Karen were enjoying the last night of their week-long vacation in Las Vegas on Sunday, October 1, before tragedy struck the popular Nevada destination.
After they finished dinner, De Naeyer and his wife decided they wanted to visit the Luxor Hotel and Casino, along with Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
“We had been there before and we wanted to see it again,” De Naeyer told the Sydenham Current.
“We saw there was a concert going on, so then we went to Mandalay Bay. We were watching the concert from across the road. So we were right underneath Mandalay Bay at the time. There was thousands and thousands of people there. We could kind of hear the music, but not real well.”
De Naeyer said they stayed and watched the concert for a while, before heading back to their hotel, the Excalibur Hotel & Casino, which is about a nine-minute walk to Mandalay Bay.
“This was around 8 p.m. I am assuming,” he said.
“Time is hard to remember when you are there… but anyway, we stayed there and watched the concert. Took pictures of the concert from across the road and then we headed back to our hotel. This was after 8 p.m. sometime. Then we got back to the room and that was around 10 p.m. I would say.
Shooting began at 10:08 p.m.
While seated inside their hotel room, De Naeyer said all of the sudden he heard lots of noise and screaming.
“I could hear people running,” he said.
“I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t like the sound of it, so I didn’t open the door. You didn’t know what was happening.”
De Naeyer added: “So we found out later that is what occurred at the time. It is amazing. We looked at the videos from everything and right where we were standing, we were directly under where this guy was shooting from. If he had started shooting a couple hours sooner, we would have been easy targets for him.”
De Naeyer said the entire situation was crazy.
“The screaming, the trampling… it was just horrible,” he said.
“We were lucky to be alive, because this guy he would have shot right over top of our heads if he would have shot then. I mean we were directly under where he was. Directly. People were screaming. The craziness.”
De Naeyer added: “It worked out well for us, but I feel sorry for the people there. It was terrible. Like I said we saw the pictures and we looked up where the window was that he was shooting out of. He would have had to shoot over top of our heads. That is where he was shooting. Where we were standing, he would have had to shoot over top of our heads. It was roughly two hours after we had left where we were standing when he started shooting. We had gone back in Mandalay Bay and walked around in there for awhile. I am just grateful we were not standing out there. We would have been easy targets for him.”
Heard many horrible stories
De Naeyer said they spoke with multiple people who had horrible stories to tell about the incident.
“We heard a lot of horror stories when we were there. One couple from Pennsylvania that we had met were at the MGM at the time,” he said.
“At that time no one actually knew at first where the shots were coming from. It was like an echo sound they said. It bounces off different buildings and this man and his wife they ran into some room and just barricaded themselves. It wasn’t a hotel room, it was just a room that they got into and barricaded it in. Them and a few other people.”
He said many people were laying in the casino where they were staying because they couldn’t get back into their hotel room at the Mandalay Bay.
“So they gave blankets out and people were sleeping on the floor… just crazy,” he said.
“People with scrapes on their legs from when they were running and it was just horrible. All the stories you hear.”
De Naeyer said he was speaking with a young man that was at the concert.
“He still had the wrist band on from the concert. He was telling us all about it,” he said.
“He said people were lucky in a way because they knocked the fence over. They put up these portable fences around the concert so there was only one way in. So only people with the passes could get in. There was just a small opening to get out of this place. Really small, but they knocked the fences down and that’s how some people got out.”
De Naeyer said the young man’s car was still at the concert.
“He was worried about getting his car back because they weren’t letting people back there of course,” he said.
“He knew his way around because he had been there before and he said he ran out. He took another exit right beside where you come in, but he went through the employee part and the guy who checked their tickets, he was laying there shot. He said it was horrible.”
De Naeyer added: “People had no idea where the shots were coming from at first. This guy was familiar with guns as I guess as a lot of Americans are. He distinctly knew there was at least three different guns just from the sound of the guns that he fired.”
De Naeyer said some people they had met earlier in the week were trapped over at MGM and they couldn’t get back to their hotel.
“Everything was closed. The SWAT teams were all over the highways and the Las Vegas Boulevard. They wouldn’t let people back unless they had a police escort and you had to show them your room of course to get a police escort back to your Motel. I have never seen so many police. They closed the Las Vegas Boulevard right off. They had it shut right down. It was just full of SWAT teams all over the place. Even in the morning still. It was horrible,” he said.
“I am just glad we left when we did. I feel sorry for the people that did get hurt. That’s terrible. People trying to enjoy themselves and than get shot at. It’s terrible. I don’t know what the world it coming to. I can’t make sense of it myself.”
Details from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department identified the lone suspect involved in the shooting as 64-year-old, Stephen Craig Paddock, from Mesquite, Nevada.
Las Vegas police officials say Paddock opened fire on a crowd of more than 22,000 concert-goers from his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel on Sunday evening at approximately 10:08 p.m.
The victims were across the street attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival concert when bullets rang out.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department SWAT responded to the call, breached the hotel room and found the suspect dead.
The massacre left 58 people dead, and 489 people injured.
