Las Vegas shooting: Security guard who first confronted Stephen Paddock breaks his silence
Jesus Campos says it will be the only time he speaks to the media about what happened
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Your support makes all the difference.The security guard who became the first person to confront the Las Vegas gunman has spoken out about his ordeal.
Jesus Campos, who works at the Mandalay Bay casino, was on duty the night Stephen Paddock killed 58 people at a country music festival by shooting from his hotel room.
The 25-year-old had previously sparked concern after vanishing ahead of planned media events, but has broken his silence in an interview with TV host Ellen DeGeneres.
Walking on set with the aid of a walking stick, Mr Campos explained how on the night of 1 October he had been told to check on a fire escape door on the 32nd floor of the hotel that had been left open.
Realising someone had put metal brackets on the door and unable to fully open it, he called an engineer.
As he went to leave, Mr Campos said he heard "rapid fire" as Paddock began shooting through his hotel room door.
“At first I took cover, I felt a burning sensation, I went to go lift my pant leg up and I saw the blood. That’s when I called it in on my radio that shots had been fired,” he said.
He decided not to say he was hit in order to free up radio traffic to allow security to coordinate the response.
As engineer Stephen Schuck came to fix the fire escape door, Mr Campos yelled for him to take cover just as the shooting begun again. “If he didn’t say that, I would have got hit,” Mr Schuck told DeGeneres.
Mr Campos has also been credited with saving the life of a female guest, ordering her to get back inside as she wandered out of her hotel room.
DeGeneres said this would be the only time Mr Campos would speak about the ordeal.
“I just wanna mention all the people that assisted that night, whether it was Metro, the FBI, the community especially coming out together to help everyone in need,” Mr Campos said.
The shooting was the deadliest in modern US history, leaving 58 dead and almost 500 injured.
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