Las Vegas shooting survivor held victim's hand as he died. Source: CNN
A woman who held a Las Vegas victim as he died in his arms while making a desperate call to his girlfriend has spoken of the horror.
Heather Gooze was working at the Route 91 Harvest festival when gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire on 20,000 people, leaving more than 500injured and 59 dead.
As thousands of terrified music fans frantically ran for their lives, many rushed into the bar area where Gooze was working to take shelter.
They heroically brought with them wounded concert-goers who weren't able to flee themselves.
Among the injured was 23-year-old Jordan McIldoon, a Canadian construction worker who was in Vegas for the weekend to attend the festival with his girlfriend Amber Bereza.
As McIldoon died in her arms, his phone rang and Gooze answered to try and find out how to contact his loved ones.
Gooze answered and had to deliver the gut wrenching news. "She said, 'Please be honest with me, what's going on?" And I said 'I didn't want to be the one to tell you this, but he didn't make it.'"
A woman has spoken about how she had to tell Jordan McIldoon's girlfriend Amber (both pictured) he had died in her arms in the Las Vegas shooting. Photo / Facebook
In disbelief, the woman begged her to check his breath and pulse again, she said, frantically telling her that he was 'the love of her life'.
Gooze then had the same conversation with McIldoon's mother in Canada.
But as hundreds of people fled the scene to take others to hospital or shelter, Gooze stayed with the man's body.
On Tuesday morning, she tearfully told CNN that she'd promised the man's mother that she wouldn't leave his side.
"I said 'I promise you, I swear to you that I will not leave him. I swear to you that I will stay with him until this is over.'"
Gooze stayed at the venue until police began removing bodies at around 3.30am. She maintained contact with the man's family to tell them where they would be able to find his body.
Resisting being labeled a hero on Tuesday, she wept: "I couldn't just leave him by himself. I didn't want him to be a John Doe."
"There was another guy that was by us. His wife had been shot and killed, the mother of his three kids, and he never left his side.
"I didn't want Jordan to not have somebody with him."
Gooze was working behind the bar at the concert when the shots began. She shared this photograph moments before the terror began. Photo / Facebook
She went on to say the real heroes of the tragedy were the countless paramedics and Good Samaritans who ran into the line of fire to pull victims out.
"I just sat with him. But I would like to think that if it was me, somebody wouldn't let me sit there alone," she said.
Gooze also described the chaotic scramble of people trying to get to safety when the first shots rang out.
"Then there were thousands of people running through trying to break the gate down behind my bar. They were literally climbing on top of each other," she told People.
McIldoon was not the only person she helped. She said she also stayed with someone who'd been shot in the head until they passed away.
