I was shot in the face during America’s deadliest mass shooting – I’ll never forget sea of bodies as I ran for my life
PICKING herself off the ground, Natalie Grumet felt an agonising burning sensation on her face unlike any pain she had ever experienced before.
She had just become one of 867 people injured when gunman Stephen Paddock, 64, opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort hotel at over 22,000 concertgoers in Las Vegas.
Paddock killed 60 people before turning the gun on himself, making it the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
Natalie is among the brave survivors who share their story in a new BBC documentary 11 Minutes: America’s Deadliest Mass Shooting.
Describing the moment she realised she’d been shot, she says: “My face felt like it was on fire. I don’t even know how to describe the extreme pain.
“I was just in shock trying to figure out what had just happened. It’s weird because sometimes I feel like everything was in slow motion. And then everything happened so fast at the same time.”
Natalie was celebrating with her husband at the Route 91 Harvest music festival, having finally beaten cancer after an agonising 10 year battle.
She recalls hearing a string of pops which she and other revellers mistook for fireworks when country music star Jason Aldean began his set.
But they soon realised the source of the noise was much more sinister.
After sneaking in 23 guns, evil Paddock fired more than 1,000 bullets at the crowds, having used a hammer to crack open his hotel suite’s windows.
Natalie says: “I heard people screaming and crying and begging for help.
“Those human cries are so loud in my mind and heart. They tore me apart listening to them.”
Realising her left side was covered in blood, Natalie fought through the excruciating pain as she and her husband tried to find an escape route.
She knew she had to get to hospital, and that her life depended on it.
“When doctors said they didn’t know if I was going to survive and I proved them wrong and I came back each time stronger, I thought, ‘Tonight is no different. You have to pull it together. You cannot let yourself fall apart. You did not survive 10 years of cancer to die here tonight’… I wished that for everyone around me through those cries and gunshots,” Natalie recalls.
“When I got up to run, you realise that it’s not gonna be okay. Because the people around you, some of them aren’t going home…
“Seeing a body on the ground you knew was shot and killed – gates had been knocked over, fences had been knocked over.”
They said that I looked like a grenade had gone off from the inside of my mouth
Natalie Grumet
Natalie only grasped the full scale of her injuries when she reached the nearby Tropicana hotel.
The bullet obliterated her left jaw bone and fractured her chin in half, compromising her airway, and she required an emergency bloody transfusion.
“I can tell by the expression on their faces how bad my situation is, how horrible my wound is, and my heart drops just taking in their reactions,” she says.
“Somebody yelled that they were doing triage to bring me back into this room.
“They said that I looked like a grenade had gone off from the inside of my mouth. You could see the gums and teeth and bones and chin sticking out.”
Natalie lost consciousness soon afterwards and woke up to find she was completely paralysed.
She required surgeries for years, and still suffers from health issues now, but is determined not to let it “break her”.
“I survived cancer, I got shot during the largest shooting in the history of the United States, but life isn’t this scorecard,” she says.
“I’m here to stay, I’m here to fight and I’m here to do what I need to do to survive.”
‘This is where I’m dying’
Another survivor who speaks in the documentary is Parker Marx, who was at the concert with his girlfriend Giana Baca and her twin sister Natalia.
Giana was struck by a bullet, and Parker recalls lying on top of her telling her he loved her as deafening screams filled the air.
“Giana didn’t know what was going on,” he says. “I knew exactly when she got hit because when I was lying on top of her, I could feel her body almost like a jolt. I remember opening my eyes and going ‘oh s**t’.
“At that point, I was like ‘Okay, this is it. This is where I’m dying right here.”
Giana, who survived, adds: “I just remember looking on the ground beneath me and I saw a puddle of blood… All I remember seeing was the moon and the puddle. I [had] no idea what was going on.”
Natalia was also shot and was rushed to a hospital, where medics found the bullet was just a few millimetres from her main artery.
She was told they had run out of morphine, and medics had to cut her open to insert a chest tube without any medication. Remarkably she too pulled through.
‘Hole in my neck’
At around 10:12pm, in the midst of the chaos, Jonathan Smith, who had kids and had experienced racism as a black man at the concert that night, was one of the many people scrambling to safety.
On his way out he came across scores of injured people lying helpless on the ground, and took the brave decision to walk back towards the gunfire to help them.
He says: “It was pure pandemonium. Everybody was just running. I see these two ladies pinned down crying and screaming.
“I see this guy pinned down behind one car and this girl pinned down behind another car and they’re crying but everybody was just leaving them.
I can’t say what made me decide to go back in but something in me was like, it’s the right thing to do. I’ve never run into gunfire like that. I kind of went into a different zone
Jonathan Smith
“I can’t say what made me decide to go back in but something in me was like, it’s the right thing to do. I’ve never run into gunfire like that. I kind of went into a different zone.”
While Jonathan was pulling the women to safety, he felt his body jolt and turn in a different direction as he was shot in the neck.
He explains: “I felt like my body had gotten hit by a semi-truck with so much force. It knocked my glasses off and I hit the ground.
“I get this burning sensation in my shoulder and my shirt is starting to feel wet.
“My shirt went from being crisp white to red. I had been shot. I didn’t know the severity of it. I couldn’t see it. I just knew that I had a big hole right in my neck.”
My shirt went from being crisp white to red. I had been shot. I didn’t know the severity of it. I couldn’t see it. I just knew that I had a big hole right in my neck
Jonathan Smith
Nobody stopped to assist him. Jonathan claims he approached a car but the driver rolled up the window and sped off. He was eventually helped by Tom McGrath, an off-duty police officer from San Diego.
It was later revealed that Jonathan helped “countless” people before he was shot.
The mass shooting sparked heated debates about US gun laws, which continue to rage.
Despite a string of mass shootings that have happened since, American lawmakers remain locked in battles over the issue.
11 Minutes: America’s Deadliest Mass Shooting airs tonight at 9:50pm.
