Family tells of gun horror

A BEDWORTH family were today ‘thanking our lucky stars’ after being caught in the horrific stampede just moments after the shooting in Las Vegas.

Dennis Bucknall, his brother Terry and his son Graeme found themselves at the centre of the scary scrum as people sought refuge during the attack which killed 58 people at a country music festival at the Mandalay Bay hotel.

He said on the fateful night his wife Anne, sister-in-law Pat and daughter-in-law Rebecca had stayed at the penthouse apartment they had hired while the three men went out for the night.

“The women had been shopping that day and said they didn’t fancy it, so we decided to go to Hooters,” he explained. “We saw people running, screaming and shouting ‘someone has got a gun.’ So we started to run. My son got trapped on the other side of the casino. We ran to the lift but it was full, so we ran to the swimming pool but there was just a wall of people. I have never seen anything like it.

“Me and my brother Terry managed to get outside. Then I wanted to go back in to get Graeme.”

Fortunately the trio were reunited and they headed back to the apartment amid all of the chaos. When they got back, they found two women sat nearby, shivering, and trying to contact people on their phones.

“They could not get hold of their husbands or friends, so we brought them into the apartment and gave them a cup of tea,” said 69-year-old Dennis from Exhall.

The days after the attack, which took place on Sunday, October 1, was when the enormity of the mass shooting, carried out by 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, really hit home.

“I admit I had two really bad days afterwards,” Dennis said. “I kept thinking about the stampede. There were people rushing around and shoving you about, it wasn’t nice.”

But the family have not ruled out going back to the US again.

“We thank our lucky stars that nothing happened to us but it has not put us off going back to Las Vegas,” said Dennis.