Social media star Dan Bilzerian was backstage at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas when a gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel on Sunday.
“I used to play baseball with Jake Owen when I was a kid,” Bilzerian, a known gun enthusiast and a former US Navy Seal trainee, told People. “We were on stage when the gunfire started.”
He added that it took everyone about 15 seconds to figure out what was going on: “It sounded like firecrackers, which is what it sounds like when supersonic bullets are flying over your head.”
Bilzerian “ran to safety” and says he saw a woman lying on the ground. “She was dead. She had been shot in the head, and her brain was showing,” he noted.
He then got to his van and took an injured woman to the hospital, he explained, but later made the decision to return to the scene with his own gun to save other people. However, when he got back to the site of the festival, he realized law enforcement had already arrived at the scene.
“It was a pretty strong wake-up call,” he added. “This stuff can happen without warning anywhere. It’s not smart to get caught without a gun.”
On Sunday night, a gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel at the crowd of the Route 91 Harvest country music festival. At least 58 people have died, with more than 500 people injured. The suspect is dead from what police believe to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Bilzerian posted to his Instagram story while fleeing the scene.
“Time to go grab a gun, I’m f–king headed back,” Bilzerian says at one point in the video.
Watch it below.
Dan Bilzerian running from the chaotic scene in #LasVegas 😳🙏 @danbilzerian pic.twitter.com/7N7mr72tmU
— WORLDSTARHIPHOP (@WORLDSTAR) October 2, 2017