Frankfort Man Recalls 'Horror' Of Running For Life During Las Vegas Shooting

LAS VEGAS, NV — Joe Hartung, like many, is a regular visitor to Las Vegas. The Frankfort resident and 2008 Lincoln-Way East alum says he's visited the popular tourist destination at least once a year for the past eight years and has been on the famous Las Vegas Strip dozens of times. But after being in earshot of Sunday night's tragedy, Hartung says he's unsure if he will ever be back.

"When you experience something like that...it changes your whole perspective on ever wanting to go back," said Hartung, who was walking south on The Strip toward Mandalay Bay and the Route 51 Harvest Music Festival as the first shots were fired Sunday night.

"My buddy and I had just left the Luxor (Casino and Hotel) and wanted to walk down The Strip because we knew there was a concert going on," Hartung told Patch on Tuesday. "All of a sudden we hear 'pop, pop, pop.' It sounded like fireworks, but people everywhere started running, screaming and yelling: 'There's a shooter. There's a shooter.'"

The Victims Of The Las Vegas Shooting

What Hartung heard was the first round of bullets from Mandalay Bay, where 64-year-old Stephen Paddock fired at will at concertgoers, killing at least 59 and wounding at least 510.

Hartung says he and his friend ducked near one of the brick walls on The Strip when the second round of bullets started, and once that stopped "ran nonstop back to the Flamingo" hotel where they were staying about a half-mile north of Mandalay Bay.

"There were many people screaming, some bleeding and we heard from someone that there was a second shooter on The Strip," Haptung said. "Fortunately that turned out not to be true."

It wasn't until he and his friend were back inside the hotel and turned on the TV that they were able to contact family and friends, some of whom who had made the trip to Vegas with them, to let them know they had escaped unharmed.

"Thankfully we were all alright," he said.

Less than 48 hours removed from finding himself in the middle of a national tragedy — one that was never previously equaled on a national scale — Hartung already notices how much this has changed his life.

"It made me realize that you can be here one minute and be gone the next," said Hartung, now back home in Frankfort. "It has humbled me out and made me realize you need to be close with your loved ones."

"This isn't something anyone should experience. It was scary. Felt like the world was ending."

The site of the tragedy is one that millions of Americans are familiar with. The Las Vegas Strip is a place most who travel seek out at least once. For many, like Hartung, it's a yearly destination.

"Vegas is the place you go to escape from reality for awhile," he said. "I like to gamble, the shows and to have a good time."

That's in stark contrast to the feeling that overcame the thousands that were on the busy stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard.

"It was pretty packed for a Sunday night with the concert taking place," Hartung said, noting that it was the final night of a five-day trip he and his friends had planned. "And just like that, people were running for their lives. Running over each other, into any hotel they could find. It was horror."

The Strip went from the loud party that it has always been to "a ghost town" in moments.

Although "still in shock" from the events of Sunday night, Hartung says it would be hard for him to ever visit Las Vegas for fun ever again.

"I'll have to take a long break from it," he said. "I can't ever picture being back there and not having flashbacks and visualizing what just happened."

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