Debris litters a festival grounds across the street from the Mandalay Bay resort and casino Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017, in Las Vegas. Authorities said Stephen Craig Paddock broke windows on the casino and began firing with a cache of weapons, killing dozens and injuring hundreds at a music festival at the grounds. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Friday, Oct. 6, 2017 | 2 a.m.
One Las Vegas man who attended the Route 91 Harvest Festival for the past three years said his familiarity with the location of the exits helped his group escape during the gunfire.
Because of the way the festival area was set up, there were limited ways the massive crowd was able to disperse, said Judd Frazier, a former nurse whose instinct was to help those who had fallen as shots rang out before he led the three others in his group to safety.
Frazier was no more than 20 feet from the stage enjoying Jason Aldean’s performance on the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday night like the rest of the 22,000 people in attendance.
He snapped several pictures of his favorite country artist to document the good time. Moments later, that good time turned into a living nightmare.
“He got into his set about four songs, and he was talking in between and all that. Then he started singing. All of a sudden, you hear this, ‘pop-pop-pop,’” Frazier said. “Then I thought, ‘Who brought firecrackers into this thing?’”
Frazier, 49, said he has shot high-powered rifles before and knew the sound, but didn’t think anything of it at that point.
“Then a few seconds later, I hear, ‘pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.’ It was like 30 or 40 rounds. Then I thought, ‘OK, it’s a brick of firecrackers’ after that,” he said. “I was still looking off to the right, which was toward the Mandalay Bay, and I still thought it was firecrackers.”
Only when Frazier heard a cry for assistance did he realize the correct source of the sounds and the unfolding tragedy.
“About 10 feet behind me, a person yelled for help. I turned around, looked and she had blood all over her, and I thought, ‘This is real,’” he said.
Frazier, who worked as registered nurse at University Medical Center’s trauma center for eight years before becoming a senior Enterprise Resource Planning analyst for the hospital more than a year ago, said the large number of people made difficult to hit the ground where he was.
“As you’re standing there real tight into the stage, everybody is trying to drop to the ground, but you can’t,” he said. “It took about three or four rounds of the 20 or 30 rounds before everybody started to realize what was going on.”
With the festival having a confusing setup, Frazier said some of the panicked crowd were trapped in the line of fire.
“We’re all packed up to the stage, all 20,000 of us all packed in, so where do you go? There was a wall to the left of me that divided the center part of the stage, so we couldn’t go that way. And we couldn't go toward the stage, so all I could do is go behind me.”
“People were tripping over each other,” he said. “I was helping them get up, saying, ‘This is real. Get out of here!’ because people still didn’t know what was going on.”
Being a registered nurse, Frazier's instinct was to help those who needed assistance despite the continuing danger.
“I’m a nurse. When I see blood, I want to go help. I had other people with me and the first rule is to make sure the scene is safe, and of course it wasn’t safe,” he said. “So I was just helping people get out the best that I could.”
Armed with his knowledge of the festival grounds, after navigating the sea of people, he and his group were able to exit the area.
“It took me about six or seven minutes to exit the area,” he said. “It was tough because of all of the people. They were tripping over each other, and I was helping people up,” he said.
Those who weren't as familiar with the festival grounds as he was were at a disadvantage, he said.
“Of course it did (the lack of exits played a role),” he said. “We were pigs in a pigpen. We had nowhere to go. I hate to say it, but he (Stephen Paddock) planned it well. But it's not about him, it’s about the people helping others.”
Although he is no longer an active nurse, he said he has been in close contact with his former colleagues at the UMC Trauma Center. He said they handled everything as well as anyone could given the circumstance.
“They had plans in place, and they executed them flawlessly,” Frazier said. “Obviously, you can’t practice or prepare for what happened, you do the best you can for different scenarios and they executed them the best they could.”
