The date is October 1st 2017, route 91 country music festival is on its final night, the last performer was on stage and my girlfriend and I were towards the back of the crowd with some family and friends while the rest of our group was split up, up by the stage. There were 11 of us at the festival. Randomly there was some steady, spaced out “pops” and directly between where we were sitting and where the shots were coming from was a huge speaker tower. So at first I thought it was just a blown speaker or some sort of malfunction. Others in our group did not have that same calmness and need for information. They wanted to get out of there as fast as possible and not stick around and risk anything. So some of our group left and headed for the car. Me and my girlfriend hung out at our seats for probably about 2-4 minutes, and about that time it became obvious what was going on when the “pops” became faster and faster and everyone in front of us was running and trying to find cover.

At that point we were in the walk way next to our seats and I took my girlfriend and pushed her to the ground to try and get out of harms way, I chose to take a knee with my back towards the stage. I then turned around while everyone was still laying on the ground so I could get a visual of what was going on. There was no threat I could see so I then picked my girlfriend up off the floor and we continued on. Moving behind food trucks, my girlfriend then tripped and there was a mass if people running behind us. Then another person tripped on top of my girlfriend. So as I’m trying to get her up with one hand I’m also looking back at the crowd of people trying to get their attention us so we wouldn’t get trampled. I eventually get her up and as were moving, I realize she’s missing a shoe so I turned back to get her shoe and then I thought to myself “why the fuck am I going back for a shoe” so we continued on and moved from behind the food trucks. A cop was opening a big gate to our right so we moved out that gate. At that point my girlfriend was telling me she couldn’t breath. As I’m sure you guys know how high levels of adrenaline affects the body with super dry mouth and throat. So I put her behind a cop car in the street and continued to scan the area for out next route. I dont know if it was luck or God but I saw that couple that left before us getting in their car. Probably 100 yards or more from me. I cant explain how I saw them but I grabbed my girlfriend told her if we wanted a ride we need to move now. So we ran up the street and got to their car as they were leaving their parking spot. I told my buddy to unlock the car and he looked at me and said “bro cars full”.

I looked inside and the car was just packed full of random people trying to leave. So I went to the back of the car popped the trunk and had my girlfriend lay in the trunk while i just sat on the bumper. We made our exit and dropped off the random people at a gas station a couple miles away and continued on to the hotel. We got to the hotel and me and the driver dropped off his wife and my girlfriend and went back to the car to get more people out. As we were rushing out of the hotel someone yelled at us two saying “hey you have blood on ur shirt” he was in front of me so I immediately pulled up his shirt looking for any kind of wound. Then the lady yelled again “no not him, you!” So I was feeling around myself while he was looking at my back for anything. We came to the conclusion it was someone else’s blood and continued to the car. We went back and picked up another 5 people from our group. That means we had 9 people accounted for. The only ones still missing were my parents. We got ahold of them and my dad had taken a group of people including my mom into the basement of one of the near by hotels and put a pallet in front of the door. They stayed locked down in that hotel until about 5:30am and then had to walk back to the hotel because the FBI wouldn’t let any vehicles on the street. Luckily all 11 of our group made it out safe. Rest in peace to the 58 people that lost their lives that day.

Thank you guys for everything you do to give support and motivation to this community you guys have built. Love listening to the podcast and will hopefully be going through selection sometime next year.