Vegas Strong

We woke up to the news on Monday 2nd October 2017 from Las Vegas that a lone gunman had opened fire on people who were at the route 91 music festival.

The reports and news were changing by the minute, within an hour the death toll had gone from 2 up to 58 and at least 100 injured. They ended up with 58 dead and nearly 500 injured.

The gunman was located on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. At the time of writing this post, the reason behind his actions is still unclear. The gunman was firing for around 15 minutes, he’d barricade himself into his room and he had around 43 different weapons and more than enough ammunition.

The news came out of some heroic acts from many people including someone finding the keys in a pickup truck transporting injured people to the hospital then returning back 3 more times to help move people,  British soldiers on R&R who recognised the sound of gunfire and went towards the injured and administered battlefield first aid.

It was never in any doubt that we would still go to Vegas but we were unsure about what the atmosphere would be like.

Vegas is a city like no other and it’s reaction to this event was to join together and work as one. Hotels opened their doors to anyone that needed help, free rooms were available to anyone who traveled to visit relatives in hospitals, flights were organised as well. Free food for first responders was available at many hotels.

Very soon the hashtag #vegasstrong was starting to be used linking all the efforts together, the strip went dark on Monday evening, a popup memorial by the Welcome to Vegas sign, a commemorative garden was created in a matter of days and shows were canceled.

When we arrived, on the surface the only thing we noticed was that some of the large signs were just showing supportive messages. The staff serving went about there normal tasks giving the same great service, we did talk to a couple of people who knew friends that were there but they were just trying to move on.

There are the obvious questions and discussions happening regarding gun ownership, these are very hard to comment on when you don’t with the type of gun laws that they have in America so we’re not going to pass comment.

Our hearts and thoughts go out to all those affected by what happened.