Musician, others hid in ice chest during Las Vegas shooting

Musician Bryan Hopkins hid in a large ice chest with dozens others while the deadliest mass shooting in US history unfolded in Las Vegas claiming 59 lives and injuring over 500 others.

Hopkins was performing at the Route 91 Harvest festival here and had stepped off stage and into the crowd when gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire on the audience from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Hotel.

The musician and several others immediately took shelter in the ice chest to escape the carnage. In chilling footage from their hiding place, Hopkins streamed a Facebook Live account of what was happening around them.

"We're in this icicle room right now. Some sort of shooting or something at the Jason Aldean concert."

Hopkins told CNN he initially thought the "pop, pop, pop" was something wrong with the sound system or pyrotechnics gone wrong.

People can be heard on the video discussing whether to stay inside the ice chest. Hopkins said there were as many as 30 people hiding.

He said some in the ice chest worked to calm down the others while he opened the door and discovered the gunfire was still raining down on the festival.

"The thing I'll always remember is a police officer who ran towards me and said, 'This way,' pointed to where to run, and then ran towards the gunfire," Hopkins said.

The gunman, identified by police as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, killed himself before law enforcement breached his hotel room and found a cache of weapons including 10 rifles.

--IANS

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