Death toll from Las Vegas mass shooting rises to 59, including a third Canadian
Posted October 2, 2017 3:38 pm.
Last Updated October 3, 2017 4:51 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
LAS VEGAS (NEWS 1130) – The rapid-fire popping sounded like firecrackers at first, and many in the crowd of 22,000 country music fans didn’t understand what was happening when the band stopped playing and singer Jason Aldean bolted off the stage.
“That’s gunshots,” a man could be heard saying emphatically on a cellphone video in the nearly half-minute of silence and confusion that followed. A woman pleaded with others: “Get down! Get down! Stay down!”
Then the bam-bam-bam sounds resumed. And pure terror set in.
While some concertgoers hit the ground, others pushed for the crowded exits, shoving through narrow gates and climbing over fences as 40- to 50-round bursts of what was believed to be automatic weapons fire rained down on them from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay casino hotel.
By Monday afternoon, 59 victims were dead and 527 wounded in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
The gunman, identified as Stephen Craig Paddock, a 64-year-old retired accountant from Mesquite, Nevada, killed himself before officers stormed Room 135 in the gold-colored glass skyscraper. He had been staying there since Thursday and had busted out windows to create his sniper’s perch, roughly 500 yards from the concert grounds.
The motive for the attack remained a mystery, with Sheriff Joseph Lombardo saying: “I can’t get into the mind of a psychopath at this point.”
Lombardo says investigators found 18 firearms, explosives and several thousand rounds of ammunition in the home of Paddock.
Three Canadians killed in attack
Friends have told CityNews Edmonton that a woman from Jasper, Alberta – Calla Medig – did not survive the attack on Sunday. Medig becomes the third Canadian to be killed in Las Vegas.
On Monday, the family of 23-year-old Jordan McIldoon confirmed his death, just days before his birthday. McIldoon, from Maple Ridge, was a heavy duty mechanic who worked with Jacob Bros Construction, which is based in Surrey.
CityNews Edmonton has confirmed Alberta woman Jessica Klymchuk was also killed in the shooting. She was a mother of four from the Grande Prairie area, who was visiting Vegas with her fiance.
Jordan McIldoon and Jessica Klymchu.
Former Victoria TV anchor Hudson Mack’s son was among the hundreds who were hurt. He is reportedly recovering in the hospital after having surgery.
Canadians caught up in attack head home
Canadians who were in Las Vegas during yesterday’s deadly mass shooting are beginning to return home, bringing with them stories of chaos and terror.
Toronto resident Ryan Bedrosian was in Nevada with his sister and her friend for a country music festival and says they were passing through the festival’s main gates when the shooting began.
Bedrosian, who flew into Vancouver earlier today, says he remembers the sound of bullets spraying the ground around him and seeing people fall.
Lisa Manley of Maple Ridge says she was walking along Las Vegas’s main strip when pandemonium broke out and people began screaming, “Active shooter! Active shooter!”
Manley spent hours huddling with others in the kitchen area of a hotel conference centre until police told them it was safe to come out.
