Renanta White and her husband Chris returned home to Fort McMurray on the night of Monday, Oct. 2 from Las Vegas.
She was one of thousands of people attending the concert on Sunday night.
This is her story.
“We were just dancing and we heard this pop, pop, pop,” said White.
Initially the couple thought it was fireworks but after seeing Jason Aldean being escorted quickly off the stage they knew it was something more.
“My husband grabbed my hand and we started ducking and running,” said White.
White recalls a first wave of people running, a clear open spot in the middle, a second round of the popping sounds and then another wave of people running.
“It honestly sounded like firecrackers,” said White.
While she and Chris were running, a woman fell in front of them. Chris jumped over her and at that point, their hands broke.
“He went one way and I went the other,” said White.
From there she does not remember much, there was no time for her to look back or turn around. She had no idea where the gun shots were coming from, her first instinct told her that they were on the ground.
Fleeing the concert
She hid behind a storage container shortly and then started running again, having no idea where she was or where to go.
“In my head it was just run, run,” said White. “My head was just saying run faster, keep going.
I just thought get myself to safety and then I will find him.”
Trapped in the concert grounds, White came to a gate where she and others were desperately trying to get over. She jumped over that, kept running until she came to another gate.
“I was running on this dirt path and I just thought I need to run as close to the wall as I can and get people unfortunately beside me, and I need to duck and I need to run by the gate and this wall,” said White. “So I keep running having no idea where I am.”
That is when she came to a dead end.
There was a car there and another man.
“I’m just begging to get in, please take me with you, please take me with you,” said White.
They two sat in the car for a couple of moments and when White questions if they were going to get going the man starts to laugh as he tells her that it wasn’t even his car.
They stole the vehicle, an Uber, with nine to 10 people now piled in.
White considers herself to be placed in the safest spot in the car, in the middle with people packed on top of her with her head down. Since they were at a dead end, they had to head back toward the gunfire and the concert. Back into what she thought was a ground shooter.
The Uber driver was now sitting next to White yelling ‘please be careful with my car,’ as the driver hit a gate, repeatedly to get out onto a dirt road. The driver’s wife was also in the car and they attempted to figure out where they were, while the rest of the people in the vehicle were screaming.
“[The Driver] was yelling ‘everyone shut up, everyone shut up I need GPS,’” said White.
She could not figure out why he was driving so well.
Turns out, he was a Sheriff with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
“I owe everything to this guy, I don’t know what would have happened if he didn’t take a chance on a poor lost Canadian,” said White.
Once they got to the end of the Strip, the Sheriff told everyone in the car that he was renting a condo and he would take everyone back there.
At that point, White was able to make contact with her husband, let him know she was safe and learn that he was back at their hotel with their friends.
Another woman in the car told her that her knee was bleeding all over her.
Finding Safety
Once they were in the Condo, White asked the women if she was okay and if there was anything she can do to for her knee. That is when the women told her that she was not actually bleeding, but White was still covered in blood.
There were three off duty officers at the Condo. They were inspecting White and determined that the reason why she was completely covered in blood was that someone had been shot very close to her.
There were other people at the condo who were separated by their loved ones and because everyone was trying to make contact, reception was poor.
White found out the Sheriffs first name was Chad. Not only had he driven her to safety, he now opened up his Condo to anyone who could get their safely. White said he and his wife were making sure everyone had water to cope with their shock, and were making pizza to feed them all.
“For me that’s the most important part of the story, that these people, had no idea who I was, took me in and ensured me that we were in the safest place we could be,” said White.
White said that silver lining, was the only thing able to restore her faith in humanity at the time, knowing strangers were banding together to save each other.
She spent another seven hours apart from her husband. After learning that the shooter was dead, she wondering if she could get a cab.
With the hotels on lockdown, White needed her wallet and proper identification to get into her hotel. The wallet that her husband had.
Around 4:00 a.m. her husband and best friend were able to convince a cab to take them to her.
Her husband came to the door to shake Chad’s hand and thank him for saving Whites life.
Walking back to the cab, holding hands the couple shed tears. White did not feel secure outside, knowing she was heading back towards the Strip, and the concert, to her hotel.
Back at the hotel, they learned that the airport was also on lockdown. The dead end that White had come to earlier, and the gate that was knocked down was actually the airport tarmac. While fleeing the scene, people had taken down an airport security gate and allegedly had been running on the tarmac of the Las Vegas International Airport.
Going Home
White and her husband left for their flight home four hours early.
“Even at the airport we saw people completely bruised, there was one woman who had cuts all over her body,” said White.
White and her husband left Las Vegas and began the journey home.
Four other Canadians did not make it home and six others were among the 500 injured.
The reason why White wanted to share her story was to encourage people to donate to the victims.
“Medical fees in the US are not cheap,” said White.
She is encouraging people to save their weekly coffee money and make a donation in honour of the victims.
“I don’t want [the shooter] to get the highlight, I want the highlight to be one these men and women who can’t make it home,” said White. “He does not get a win, he does not get to put my husband and I in fear of anything, or our friends. At the end of the day he doesn’t get this power over us, he does not get that opportunity.”
White and her husband are now both safe home, and recovering from witnessing and surving the largest mass shooting in North American history.
*With files from the Canadian Press
