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Lower Mainland couple hid from Las Vegas gunman under poker table

Lower Mainland couple Theresa and Mike Welsh hid from a Las Vegas gunman under a poker table at a nearby casino. The couple shot this photo Monday morning on their way home from Vegas.
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Lower Mainland couple Theresa and Mike Welsh hid from a Las Vegas gunman under a poker table at a nearby casino. The couple shot this photo Monday morning on their way home from Vegas. Photo: Facebook screen grabLower Mainland couple Theresa and Mike Welsh hid from a Las Vegas gunman under a poker table at a nearby casino. The couple shot this photo Monday morning on their way home from Vegas. Photo: Facebook screen grab

A Langley woman is glad to be alive after almost being trampled as panic broke out in a Las Vegas casino close to what is being called the worse mass killing in American history.

Sitting at the Las Vegas airport waiting for her flight back home Monday morning, Theresa Welsh told the Courier via Facebook messenger that she was at New York New York casino resort Sunday night with her husband Mike and a group of friends when crowds of people began rushing in from the strip claiming there were at least three gunmen shooting at them and others on what’s known as the Strip. Welsh says she walked away from her group to look at a TV in an attempt to find out what was going on when a mass panic took over the crowd and everyone started running. That’s when Welsh got separated from her husband and friends.

“People were running and screaming, I got pushed to the ground. I got up and a bouncer from Coyote Ugly pulled me inside and the bouncers were all holding the doors closed,” she said. “A bunch of us ran into a back room, but we were told to move because there was no emergency exit door in that room. So we had to run out in the open again to another room and ran out the fire-escape stairs.”

An estimated 22,000 people were attending the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in an outdoor area known as the Las Vegas Village Sunday night, when the shooting began. According to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, 64-year-old Stephen Craig Paddock of nearby Mesquite, Nevada, opened fire from his hotel room in the Mandalay Bay Casino directly across the street from the festival. At last count, the death toll had risen to 58 as the result of the shooting with an estimated 515 more injured.

A mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, has so far resulted in 58 dead and an estimated 515 wounded.Photo: Shutterstock

Welsh said once she made it outside people in the crowd started to panic again and there was a lot of pushing, screaming and crying. That’s when her phone died. She said the only way she could find out if her husband and friends were OK was to go back inside. She describes what happened next.

“Mothers with small children were huddled up screaming. Everyone was hiding behind things or running for the doors,” Welsh told the Courier. “I made my way back and found Mike and my friends. That’s when another massive wave of panic happened. I was on Mike’s phone with my mom screaming that a shooter was back inside [so we thought].”

Welsh said they all ran again, but this time they hid under a poker table with the casino dealers convinced a shooter had made their way into the casino.

“When we thought it was safe we stayed low and ran as fast as we could to an exit and jumped in someone’s car. We sped off and saw SWAT trucks with all the doors open with men hanging out with guns. I’ve never seen so many cops in my entire life,” Welsh told the Courier.

Just prior to boarding their flight for home, Welsh told the Courier all the couple wanted to do was get home to their children.

A Maple Ridge man is reported as one of the victims of the Las Vegas tragedy, while Hudson Mack posted on social media that his son was wounded in the mass shooting.

Canadian politicians are also expressing their condolences.