Whitefish Bay couple grateful to be alive after attending deadly Las Vegas concert

A man from Whitefish Bay was at the Route 91 Harvest Festival concert in Las Vegas on Sunday, were more than 50 people were killed and 500 hurt.

“We heard what sounded like firecrackers,” said Eric Gottlieb. “ I said, ‘that sounded a lot like a bullet.’”

He was right.

“Shortly after that, you saw Jason Aldean kind of look over at it, and then he kept playing. Then you heard another round of shots, that’s when security ran up.”

Gottlieb traveled to Las Vegas with his wife and friends for the concert.

He said, in the midst of the deadliest shooting in American history, he saw acts of kindness.

“There was a guy shot in the abdomen, and arm, and there was firefighter there and he had a tourniquet,” Gottlieb said.

“There was another girl who got separated completely from everybody else she seemed like she was in shock, everyone hung on to her and tried to console her.”

Gottlieb says he’s still not processed everything he saw, but he can’t get it out of his head.  

“Just a lot of replaying of what happened,” he said. “Is there anything we could’ve done differently?”

Gottlieb and his wife said they survived by putting something between themselves and the bullets.

"We finally found a brick wall that we kind of huddled up against," he said. "I got on top of my wife every time the shots rang."

Another Milwaukee native, Randy Stolpe, said his wife was visiting Las Vegas with her mother over the weekend.

“We were on the phone cause she was just leaving the Mandalay Bay casino,” said Randy Stolpe. “I could hear over the phone, all the popping noises.”

Stolpe’s wife, Cera, is safe and now trying to make her way back to Wisconsin. Still, what could’ve happened is haunting her husband.

“I want her here, I was completely scared to death, I had no idea how to help her how to protect her and that’s what you want to do for your loved ones .”