Vegas gun massacre sees Inverness couple in narrow escape

An Inverness couple have been caught up in the Las Vegas shooting having attended the final day of a country music festival which ended in tragedy with 58 dead and more than 500 taken to hospital.

Helen and Jim Donellan were at the 'Route 91 Highway festival' and had just decided to leave the event, with the closing act Jason Aldean on stage.

Helen said, "There was lots of Police and lots of security and you could see the Mandalay Bay hotel from where the gunman was shooting from - you could see that from all around the concert - so they had full-range of the whole crowd"

"It was all teenagers, people in their 20s and 30s, it's just so sad"

But to start with, Helen said there was a lot of confusion, as people appeared to believe that the shooter - or even shooters - were inside the crowd.

Helen describes when the chaos began at the concert:

"There were people injured and people screaming, "she's got blood on her", and things like that, but you didn't want to look round, you just wanted to keep going because it seemed like the gunman was just behind us. The sound seemed so close"

"It was all teenagers, people in their 20s and 30s, it's just so sad"

Despite the shock of the incident, Helen admits that such an attack could happen anywhere at any time.

"We've always felt pretty safe in Vegas, but this is pretty extreme, everybody was screaming and running for their lives. It kept going and kept going. After we were at the MGM (Hotel), we saw a taxi pull up dropping someone off and just jumped in. The taxi driver hadn't heard about what had happened, but was just so shocked"

Thinking about the ordeal, Helen doesn't believe it would deter her from returning to Las Vegas, she said, "I don't think it would stop and we don't know the reasons why (it happened) and what they did it for. You just don't know, you could get an attack like that anywhere"