Claypool said he saw two people get shot down and spoke to other witnesses who said they watched their friends die.
\"It was chaos everywhere\" and it was hard to figure out where to run, he said.
Claypool said his attendance at the festival Sunday night was “ironic” because he had originally planned to leave Las Vegas on an earlier flight Sunday evening, skipping the last night of the festival. But he said he changed his mind because his view from the 24th floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, which he said was similar to the view the shooter had, was “so beautiful” that he decided to stay one more night.
“I was going to leave and take a 7:50 flight back to L.A.,” he told ABC News. “What’s so surreal about this is, I’m on the 24th floor of the Mandalay Bay. I have the exact view of this lunatic that killed everybody, and I was looking out that window [Sunday] afternoon and I said to myself, ‘This looks so beautiful. It’s such a beautiful setting that I’m going to stay an extra night and not go back.’ And then I go, and people are massacred. Because of that same view that I saw.”
Social media video showed witnesses scrambling to flee the scene as shots rang out. Some people were seen crouching on the ground, stumbling over each other, as others attempted to run.
Claypool said he was able to make it out without physical harm, but added that the images of the terrifying scene will stay with him forever.
“I’m telling you, your life was flashing in front of you,” he said. \"The feeling you get is complete helplessness.\"
Claypool said he was “determined” to keep the young women with whom he was sheltering in place safe, and to get home to see his 11-year-old daughter.
“I said to myself, ‘These girls aren’t going to die. I’m not going to die. I need to get home to see my daughter. This is not happening. Not happening,” he said.
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