Love blooms amid tragedy
N.B. woman weds American who rescued her
Chantal Melanson considers Austin Monfort to be her knight in shining armour.
It was Monfort to the rescue when he helped Melanson escape the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.
The two fell in love and when he got down on one knee to propose, Melanson didn’t hesitate to say yes.
According to People magazine, Monfort first laid eyes on Melanson at a Las Vegas bar on Sept. 30, 2017.
The two — complete strangers at the time — were in town to attend the Route 91 Harvest Festival, a three-night country music event.
On the second night of the event, Monfort tried to talk to Melanson, who promptly shot him down.
Undeterred, the American man approached the Canadian woman once again and asked her to dance.
She agreed and the pair danced, chatted and exchanged phone numbers.
“After I got over him not wearing cowboy boots, I thought he was really nice, handsome and tall,” Melanson told the publication. “He was so easy to talk to, it felt like we knew each other forever.”
The next night, Melanson asked Monfort to join her on the last night of the festival.
As headliner Jason Aldean performed, gunshots rained down from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel and onto the crowd of 22,000 people.
Stephen Paddock, 64, killed 58 people and wounded 413 before fatally shooting himself.
More than 800 people were wounded overall.
“We were just listening to music having a good time,” said the 24-year-old Monfort. “Until we realized that the noises weren’t fireworks, they were gunshots.
“Then it became, ‘Am I going to survive this, how much longer until police can make it stop, and how do we get out of here?’ ”
“I thought it was fireworks at the beginning,” Melanson, 29, added. “When I realized what was happening, I started panicking.”
Monfort said his instincts kicked in and protected Melanson from the chaos as he guided her out of the concert area.
“I felt safe with him — I didn’t want to leave his side,” Melanson said. “In many ways, he did save my life.”
The duo stayed with each other for the remainder of that tragic night before saying goodbye to return to their homes — Monfort in
San Diego and Melanson back to her native New Brunswick.
Melanson and Monfort kept in touch and fell in love.
The couple became engaged in March 2019 after the Canadian ventured to California.
People reported that the two later married at a San Diego courthouse and had planned a celebratory ceremony, but the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to that.
Monfort and Melanson documented their love journey on Instagram, which has more than 6,100 followers.