Local family survives Las Vegas massacre

Chaos erupted as endless shots from a powerful rifle fired down on the crowd.

Thaddeus Oliverius, a Lodgepole native and current resident of Scottsbluff, was attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival with his wife and her family, eight people total.

“We were there and everything was going good and everybody was having fun,” Oliverius said.

On the event’s third day, musician Jason Aldean took the stage. And Stephen Paddock, from the Mandalay Bay Hotel began shooting at the crowd.

“Some people said (Aldean) was using pyrotechnics for his show. Everybody thought it was a couple of fireworks going on,” Oliverius said. “We realized, where’s the sparklers and all that stuff?”

At least 58 were reported dead by Monday evening, and more than 500 were hospitalized.

Aldean became aware of the sound, paused briefly and performed a while longer before screams were heard and he stopped completely, Oliverius said.

“We all realized someone was shooting fully automatic weapons at us,” he said. “We just started hitting the deck and you could hear bullets over your head and hitting the bleachers and people screaming.”

Panic swept over the crowd. According to Oliverius, “People were just freaking out.”

“It was pretty much, people were, like, sitting, staring. What was that and what was going on? People realized it and hit the deck,” he said. “(Aldean) stopped and after that people started running in every direction, just running and getting shot and getting down. They scattered.”

Oliverius and his family took cover.

“When we realized what was going on we bunkered down. They were hitting right where my wife was sitting in the bleachers,” he said. “When he was changing magazine clips or guns… we got up and started running.”

His brother-in-law, though, was at the front of the stage, where the gunfire was concentrated.

“He’d seen the nasty part of it,” Oliverius said. “It sounded like he was shooting at Jason Aldean first. He started singing again and then took off running. A lot of people started dropping in the front and started running out and going in every direction.”

From the 32nd floor, Paddock shot at the concert crowd from one window and the Vegas strip from another.

There was no doubt in Oliverius’s mind that the weapon being used was a powerful one.

“When that 308 went off, it sounded like it was a really huge-ass gun and you could hear the bullets go by,” he said.

At first, Oliverius and his family, too, were swept up in the confusion.

“We didn’t quite understand,” he said. “We thought it was one shooter in the front. We didn’t know he was in the Mandalay Bay at the time.”

Security guards opened the gates and instructed people to not run south or west.

“We just bolted,” Oliverius said. “They started shutting down, putting everything on lockdown. You couldn’t get into the casinos. You just ended up running all the way down the strip. We ended up getting in our hotel and we were stuck in lockdown until five this morning (Monday).”

The whole incident lasted about seven to 10 minutes.

Oliverius applauded the efforts of the law enforcement officials on the scene.

“Those guys were amazing,” he said. “The FBI swat team and the CIA guys, the Vegas swat team, those guys were awesome and they were very professional. They were quick. They were quick!”

Returning home with his family safely, Oliverius said the experience offered a “life lesson.”

“You think that can never happen to you and when it does you’re in shock for a couple of seconds. You have to make a decision and act on it, and not just sit there. That’s what we did. We made our decision,” he said. “People are getting shot and you’re getting shot at, too. You see people sitting there. There’s pandaemonium because people don’t know what to do and you feel bad for them.”