Canadians among dead
Mother of four from Alberta and a B.C. man days away from his 24th birthday,
Two Canadian families are grieving today.
In a Sunday night attack on the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Nevada, B.C. native Jordan McIldoon and Albertan Jessica Klymchuk lost their lives. Klymchuk’s death was confirmed by her home province’s premier Rachel Notley; McIldoon’s, by a relative.
Klymchuk was the mother of four children, and was in Nevada with her fiancé when she was killed. Friend Candace Nicole described her as a “gorgeous human being,” and said Klymchuk’s kids were her entire life.
“She had the biggest heart and she always wore the sweetest smile. Her kids were her entire life and her family and friends meant the world,” Nicole said.
McIldoon would have turned 24 on Friday, and was only a month shy of finishing his training as a heavy-duty mechanic.
In a Facebook posting, Heather Gooze of Las Vegas said she was outside the festival grounds on Sunday.
“I am with a young man who died in my arms! RIP Jordan McIldoon from British Columbia,” Gooze wrote.
As news of both deaths hit airwaves and grief rippled north of the border, another Canadian couple — still cooped up in Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay hotel — peered outside at a broken window two floors below.
There, a drape blew out from the fractured glass, into the morning wind.
It’s the spot where 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire.
“There’s debris everywhere,” Lindsay Sherk — who travelled from Ottawa for the festival — said over the phone, looking out the window.