As devastating accounts emerge from the horrific Las Vegas massacre, one Australian man has revealed he was staying in the next hotel room to the gunman.
Brian Hodge, originally from Wagga Wagga, said he was staying in room 32134 while gunman Stephen Paddock was in room 32135.
It was in that room that Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, killing at least 59 people and leaving 527 injured. It’s the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
Brian Hodge recounted the pandemonium during the atrocity to 7 News (watch at the top):
“I was going to my room and went up to the level and came out and this woman came running up to me and she said, ‘You need to get out, there is a shooter’.
“I didn’t understand what she was meaning and she said ‘There was gunfire, there was a shooting.'”
Mr Hodge said they managed to get into the casino’s kitchens and got out of the building where they hid in bushes for over three hours.
“It was a machine gun from the room next to me,” he said. “My floor is a crime scene. They killed a security guard on my floor.”
Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it was “premature” to talk about gun control measures.
“There’s a time and place for a political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country,” she said.
