Blair McLaughlin and Kristi Thorburn recall ‘mayhem’ of horrific attack by gunman

Surviving Sunday evening’s attack by a lone gunman in Las Vegas has given Sault resident Blair McLaughlin a whole new appreciation for life.

“Saying ‘I love you’ to people means a lot,” McLaughlin said, speaking to SooToday Wednesday.

A weary McLaughlin and his girlfriend Kristi Thorburn returned home to the Sault Tuesday evening.

Stephen Paddock, 64, of Mesquite, Nev., carried out the attack, taking people’s lives and causing mass panic, before taking his own life.

“There was a group of 11 of us at the concert, all Canadians, the majority of them from Kenora (where McLaughlin and Thorburn hail from) and Winnipeg, along with myself and Kristi.”

The couple were staying at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, where Paddock was staying, and from where the gunman shot at the crowd below.

“I had the same view as this guy, he was 15 floors above us,” McLaughlin said.

A metal bar ran down the centre of the concert audience area, with McLaughlin and his group, including his twin brother Cam and his wife April on the right side of the stage, closest to the side of the Mandalay Bay Resort from where the hail of bullets rained down.

“The last performer of the night was Jason Aldean, and he had been playing for five songs or so, and all of a sudden, the only thing I can liken it to was the sound of firecrackers, about 20 of them, about 30 feet over my head,” McLaughlin said.

“There was a strange echo from the buildings around, so you couldn’t really tell where it was coming from. You could see the performer hesitated, he looked around and everyone in the crowd started looking around too. I think everyone thought it was part of the show, like fireworks.”

It wasn’t long, however, before everyone knew what was happening.

“He (the gunman) fired right into the crowd, right near the front of the stage, and we were about 200 feet back.”

“Another round of shots went off, but this one sounded different, it was a different type of gun.”

“A bunch of people dove to the ground, and I looked to my left and I saw my brother dive over the bar, and his wife, and pretty much the rest of our crew. When I saw him diving it was rapid fire at that point… right where he had jumped over the bar, there was a glass sitting on the bar and it exploded and a bunch of bullets hit a trailer.”

“The bullets were about 10 feet above our heads. I grabbed Kristi’s hand and we ducked down.”

A delay followed, McLaughlin said, while the gunman prepared for his next round of fire on the crowd.

The couple started running from the scene.

“As we were running, he started shooting again, and you could see dust clouds popping up as the bullets hit the ground.”

“People were getting hit. It was mayhem.”

McLaughlin said as the couple reached an exit to the famous Las Vegas Strip, police officers told people to flee from the direction of the line of fire coming from the Mandalay Bay Hotel.

“They helped save our lives. We turned and we ran, and the closest cover was a set of bleachers and we got in behind there, and that was scary too because there were thousands of people squishing into an area maybe 20 feet wide and 100 feet long surrounded by a chain link fence on either side, and as more people came, it was squishing us tighter and tighter.”

“We got stuck there, it seemed like forever but it was probably about 20 seconds. We squeezed along the fence and got out. Instead of following the crowd, because people were falling down and getting trampled, we cut into a tent that was selling merchandise and got out the back of that, and got a clear run out of the venue.”

“Not knowing what happened to the rest of our group was terrifying,” McLaughlin said.

“It was pandemonium. Everyone was screaming ‘there’s a gunman in the hotel.’ I thought we were done,” McLaughlin said, thinking at that point there may have been several gunmen.

“I kept hold of Kristi’s hand. I kept thinking ‘we’ve got to get away from the big group.’ We hid behind a car, and you could still hear the gunfire.”

“We ran across the street and jumped into a bunch of shrubs and stayed there for about an hour and a half.”

During that time, McLaughlin was able to contact his brother, relieved to discover he was safe, but advised him to get clear away from the Strip.

“While we were in the shrubs, it seemed to never end. Then all of a sudden there was a group of about 10 people running out of the bushes saying they had a gunman behind them. So we jumped up and ran through a parking lot, over the freeway, and ended up under the underpass of a freeway.”

“We sat there with people from all over the place – Germany, Australia – for another hour and a half. We looked at social media and there were a lot conflicting reports. We heard they got the shooter but they didn’t know if there were other shooters involved so everything was locked down. They had shut the freeway down.”

McLaughlin observed a tank and two other armoured vehicles from the National Guard heading down the freeway, grateful there was more support coming amid the chaos.

McLaughlin and Thorburn eventually headed out from the underpass and were able to get a hotel room for the rest of the night.

“It was probably around three in the morning. When we walked into the lobby there were so many people, but luckily they had one room left, so we were very fortunate to find a place and get off the street.”

McLaughlin’s brother and his wife eventually caught a flight to their home in Winnipeg. Two women in McLaughlin’s group are still in Vegas but are staying “quite a way from the Strip.”

Everyone in his group, McLaughlin said, is safe.

McLaughlin and Thorburn returned home to the Sault around 11 p.m. Tuesday.

“We had a 10-month-old daughter we had left with a babysitter so we finally got to see her again last night.”

The couple has taken time off work for the next week as they try to deal with what they saw and experienced.

“I remember seeing my brother jumping over the bar, and a lot of the people laid down, they thought the gunman was a guy on his feet (at ground level) so they hit the deck, and a lot of other people started running.”

“I think the people who hit the deck were a lot of the ones who passed away because he was shooting from above, they were just sitting targets.”

“When we decided to run it was pure adrenalin, hoping one of us didn’t fall down and get trampled by the crowd (Thorburn sprained her ankle in the ordeal).”

“We didn’t know what was going on. All I knew was I saw a lot of people get shot. I felt really bad for them, for not being able to help, there were bullets hitting the ground all around. It was absolute mayhem.”

As investigators keep trying to solve the mystery of what drove a seemingly quiet man to commit mass murder, McLaughlin said he feels a sense of anger over the massacre.

“There were thousands of people, everyone was having a great time, not bothering anybody, and then for someone to use them as target practice is angering. You can’t explain these things,” McLaughlin said, adding the flashbacks of the horrific event keep coming into his mind.

“We hear the background stories of the people who perished. It keeps going through my mind how lucky we were. It just wasn’t our time is the only way I can explain how I feel.”

“There’s a lot of things I saw,” McLaughlin said, his voice trailing off.

“I’m happy to see my daughter again.”