Las Vegas shooting: ‘We heard a pop, pop, pop… You’d think we’re fine, then it starts again’

Hours after the shooting, Aldean posted on Instagram that he and his crew were safe and that the shooting was “beyond horrific”. “It hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone who was just coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night,’’ he said.

Kodiak Yazzie, 36, said the music stopped temporarily when the first shots began and then started up again before the second round of pops started. “It was the craziest stuff I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Yazzie said. “You could hear that the noise was coming from west of us, from Mandalay Bay. You could see a flash, flash, flash, flash.”

Couples held hands as they ran through the dirt lot. Faces were etched with shock and confusion, and people wept and screamed. Some were bloodied, and some were carried out by fellow concertgoers. Dozens of ambulances took away the wounded, while some people drove victims to the hospital.

The dead included at least three off-duty police officers from various departments who were attending the concert, authorities said. Two on-duty officers were wounded.

Robert Hayes, a firefighter from Los Angeles who was watching the concert, said he first thought the gunfire was some kind of equipment malfunction. Once he realised what was going on, he joined the first responders, donning one of their vests. Asked if he thought it was an inexperienced gunman, he responded: “With 30,000 people in the arena area, it was kind of like shooting goldfish … He didn’t have to be good.”