AURORA, Colo. — Marine combat veteran Scott Yarmer stood in his Aurora kitchen texting friends who’d been trying to reach him almost nonstop since they heard the news about the Las Vegas massacre.
” Definitely you could hear like an automatic weapon and that’s just what it sounded like.”
Yarmer returned on a flight to Denver from Las Vegas Monday morning after he a friend spent three days at the country music venue before the shooting began Sunday night.
“The second time it did again just ‘pop pop pop’ and I grabbed my buddy and I was like we got to go and so we started pushing people out trying to get them to get up because people were still just standing I don’t know if they thought it was part of the show or what but we were just like get out let’s go. ”
He said he and the friend led people behind the wall of a bar in the middle of the venue where they waited for the gunman to pause and reload and then moved again.
“There’s kinda two sides and the right side is over on the side by the strip and that’s where the fire was coming from and so everybody on that side went down and I was like no we’re going.”
“It was pretty much chaos I mean everybody was running back towards the hotels and stuff.”
He saw young women hiding behind bushes and other places with no protection and tried to lead them out.
“There was just people running everywhere people were jumping over fences knocking down fences trying to get through.”
Yarmer says his Marine training helped him react decisively and continue to keep moving clear of the gunfire with as many people as he could. People who were panicked or frozen out of fear.
” I wish we could’ve done more for some of the people there and stuff we kinda got out and I tried to push people out because people kinda just wanted to stand there and figure out what was going on.”