LAS VEGAS (WHDH) — One of the victims who died at the shooting at a Las Vegas country concert spent his final hours with a bartender, who said she wanted to make sure he did not die alone.
Heather Gooze was bartending at the Route 91 Festival when the gunman opened fire from a high-rise hotel next door. She said people began dragging injured victims through the bar to a makeshift triage center on a nearby street.
“Everybody was running out the door and something wouldn’t let me go,” said Gooze.
Gooze saw a man who had been shot in the head and she comforted him, holding his hand. She said within 10 minutes, she knew that he was dying and there was nothing anyone could do to save him. As she sat with the man, his cellphone rang. It was a friend, checking to see if he was OK.
“And he said, ‘Is he hurt?’ And I said, yes, he’s hurt. And he’s like, ‘Is he…’ and he just kind of stopped. And I said, he didn’t make it,” said Gooze.
The man’s friend gave Gooze his name: Jordan. His cellphone rang again and it was Jordan’s mother. Gooze spoke with her and told her what had happened to her son. Gooze also got Jordan’s girlfriend’s phone number so she could talk to her. She was on lockdown at a nearby hotel after running to safety.
“I told her I was here, I’ve been with him this whole time, I promise you I will not leave him,” said Gooze. She said she sat with him for the next four hours and she hopes she could give Jordan’s loved ones some small comfort.
“I didn’t want him to just be a no-named body. I knew who he was and now I had an obligation to make sure that everybody knew who he was,” said Gooze.
Jordan was identified by officials as 23-year-old Jordan McIldoon, of British Columbia. His parents issued a statement thanking first responders and the people who stayed with him as he died.
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