Kristina Ambartsumian was in attendance at the music festival, which became the scene of the largest shooting massacre in modern U.S. history.
***WARNING: Portions of this interview depict graphic events***
A country music festival turned into the scene of the largest mass shooting in modern American history.
At least 58 are dead and over 500 more are injured after a gunman opened fire at the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival in Las Vegas on Sunday night. Concertgoer Kristina Ambartsumian, who found herself just feet away from the rounds of gunfire and wounded victims, opened up to ET's Brendon Geoffrion about the horror on the scene.
“When we first heard the gunshots, my girlfriend was like, ‘What the hell was that sound?’” she explains. “I said, ‘Maybe it’s fireworks, and all of a sudden it started to get louder, and then Jason Aldean dropped the mic and was running off of the stage.”
“The next thing you know a girl gets shot standing two feet away from us ... and she was completely covered in blood and her face was bleeding,” Ambartsumian continues. “She was in shock and had no idea what was going on. At that point we realized that it was a shooter.”
“My girlfriends and I ran underneath the stage, and we were, like, going towards the back and we can just hear the gunshots going off and off and off,” Ambartsumian adds. “We literally thought that we were going to die because the gunshots seemed like they were so close to us.”
Prior to the horrific massacre, Ambartsumian, like many fans, shared photos of anticipation for the music festival, including one picture with Aldean’s pregnant wife, Brittany.
However, that quickly changed when the shooting broke out. As Instagram videos taken show the seemingly unending gunfire, Ambartsumian describes witnessing multiple festival attendees falling down around her.
“I could see people outside just getting shot left and right, and falling to the floor,” she says. “We would hear the gunshots stop, and then they would resume again … They were probably going off for 15 to 20 minutes it felt like, and even when we got out on the street, we were still hearing it, and we were seeing people passed out and hurt, bleeding. People were trying to help each other. Just awful.”
Somehow, amid all the chaos, some brave people were able to help get people, including Ambartsumian and her friends, out of harm’s way.
“There was one guy, he was like telling us, ‘Get down, get down, stay down, stay down,’ and he was helping us,” she recalls. “It was so dark you could barely even see anything, and at one point, like this guy was laying down on the floor with us, kind of hovering over us, and then he found a way to get out … Then there was a security person there and they were like, ‘Come out, come out this way.’”
“It was just so crazy, it was happening all so fast,” she adds. “It's so insane.”
Obviously, the heartbreaking aftermath of the shooting was unimaginable to witness.
“We were seeing people passed out on the streets, having, like, panic attacks,” Ambartsumian describes. “We saw people with gunshot wounds. People trying to help … somebody in a wheelchair, that we saw people helping out. It was just terrible.”
As with many attendees, Ambartsumian was at one point separated from her friend, which led to further panic and uncertainty.
“It could have been us. We thought that we were going to get killed. And then we lost our friend,” she explains. “I thought something had happened to her, because I even had tried reaching her, and calling her family members.”
“She hadn’t called anybody, so I 100% thought that something had happened to her,” Ambartsumian continues. “We were trying to call the hospitals, and her brother went down to the police headquarters. We didn't hear from her until, like, 4:30 in the morning.”
The nation is in mourning after the tragic event. On Monday, many expressed heartbreak on social media, as well as renewed, impassioned calls for stronger gun control laws.
Watch the video below for how some celebrities, including Ariana Grande, reacted to the news.