Two Delaware residents recall night of horror in Las Vegas

Stories of heartbreak and courage continue from those who attended the Las Vegas concert, including those from the Delaware Valley who are home and trying to make sense of what they witnessed. Fox 29 spent some time with a couple of friends from Wilmington still wondering how they made it out of Las Vegas alive. They are feeling so many emotions, including guilt, wondering how they survived, when so many others did not.

42-year-old Steve Gold knew where he needed to be Tuesday back on the field at the Wilmington Blue Rocks' Frawley Stadium, where he serves as head groundskeeper.

“I think I just want to be here,” Gold told Fox 29, “And just kind of get back into the routine of working.  I don’t have any wounds on me.  I'm walking around, but some people aren't that lucky."

On Sunday, Gold was in attendance at the Las Vegas country music festival. He was invited to join his friend, Megan O’Donnell also from Delaware. Both say the music was great, the beer was cold and the crowd was friendly. Then, the shooting started, and the music was drowned out by the rat-tat-tat of seemingly endless gunfire and the screams of the dying.

Concertgoers scrambled desperately for cover.

As O'Donnell ran through the darkness -- her legs scraped and bleeding, her backpack covered in someone’s blood -- her mind turned to her twin 11-year-old daughters.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she wiped away tears, “(but) they were the first things that I thought about when I said, 'we have to go.  I have to make it home to my babies!"

Gold helped others scramble over a fence to safety.

He was led, along with hundreds of others, to a nearby shelter-- a casino-- where he met a young woman.

"She looks up at me,” says Gold, “And she says, 'My boyfriend's dead.'  She goes, 'it's not good.  He can't be alive.  She didn't know, but she was thinking that he was dead. She goes, 'write your name down and I'll contact you.  I'll let you know what happens.' I just write 'Cowboy Steve' and my number."

Monday night, back in Wilmington, Gold received a text from that young woman.

Tears filled his eyes as he described the message:

"It said…uh...she said, 'Cowboy Steve-' ...she told me she lost him.'"

As Gold left the casino that night, he ripped his expensive concert bracelet/ticket off his hand. It was uncomfortable and reminded him of the tragedy he had just survived.

“I took it off and threw it in my bag.  Then this morning, I was unpacking and I saw it and I put in on for the people.”

A tribute to those who never made it home.

Both Gold and O’Donnell say despite this horrific memory, neither will stop going to big outdoor concerts. To do that, says Megan, would mean he – the shooter – wins. And, he’s already taken too much.