Storme Warren Recalls Route 91 Harvest Festival Shooting Incident

Warren remembers hearing the bullets hitting the stage deck during Jason Aldean's closing set, and tried to help as many people as he could while trying to stay safe from the attack.

Written by Kelly Brickey
Storme Warren Recalls Route 91 Harvest Festival Shooting Incident
Storme Warren; Photo by Anna Webber/Getty Images for SiriusXM

Out of the thousands of witnesses to Sunday night’s (Oct. 1) tragic events, SiriusXM’s Storme Warren recounted exactly what he saw occur at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas.

Calling in to HLN to talk about the incident with host Robin Meade, Warren remembered not much of what he saw but rather the bone-chilling sounds of the gunfire coming thousands of feet away from a Mandalay Bay Hotel room window.

“They were hitting the stage deck. You could actually hear the shells hitting the stage deck. I was standing onstage when this first started to happen. When we all realized, Jason’s crew very professionally rushed Jason and his band off the stage and got them safe. Then we all realized we had to get safe. We saw the chaos of the crowd. It was very surreal. As soon as the gunfire had ceased for awhile, at least what we thought was going to be awhile, I wanted to go up and try to go out into the grass of the arena and see what was going on. There were bodies. There were bodies in the grass. There were people hurt, and bloody, injured people. Not just a couple. It was a lot of people that we witnessed. I tried to help as many as we could. We all chipped in and everybody’s racing around. We had panicked relatives and girlfriends and boyfriends saying ‘I need a medic over here!’ It’s tough to imagine that could happen minutes before such a festive event,” he recounted for the news program.

Warren then went on to detail the spontaneous medical help given out by those in attendance, as well as the brave first responders who came on the scene despite being in the middle of what seemed like a warzone.

“Everybody who had medical experience was chipping in. I want to say something fantastic about the humanity at this festival. Everybody chipped in. Everybody was trying to help one another to get out, to be safe. Everybody came together. Anybody’s like, ‘I’m a medic. I have first aid experience. Who needs help?’ Everybody was really chipping in. It was amazing to see. Also, the breadth of the devastation came true as you’re walking around. I checked on a couple who were dead. You had to move onto people who were still okay, or just injuries that you could help. That was a traumatic for everybody. In that adrenaline rush, everyone wanted to help and be safe at the same time. We didn’t know if the shots were going to continue again,” the SiriusXM host said.

Like many seeing the events play out on the news, Warren evaluated the future of music festivals and safety at concert venues worldwide after the shooting took place on what outlets are calling a ‘soft target.’

“We’ve had those talks with Chris [Young] and Tyler [Reeve]. It’s not going to stop you from performing. It’s not going to stop you from entertaining. It’s not going to stop you from doing anything. It’s a horrible, horrible reality, this new reality we’re living in. You don’t stop the world for this stuff. It’s going to take a few days to decompress. The news keeps playing the sound of those gunshots. It’s too hard for us to hear it. We’ve been watching the news trying to keep up on it, but we have to keep the sound down because we can’t hear the sounds anymore. It’s too real,” Warren hoped, optimistically.

Gunfire began during Jason Aldean’s headlining set to close out the Route 91 Harvest Festival held annually in Las Vegas. 58 people were killed, with a reported 515 others injured from the attack. Updates continue to come in, including news that the confirmed suspect was a 64-year-old man named Stephen Paddock and is dead. The attack was classified as the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, with President Trump deeming the incident as an “act of pure evil.”

Many country stars, from the festival and elsewhere, sent out messages of love on social media. Sharing prayers and kind thoughts with everyone affected by the incident, condolences resonated throughout the community as a whole.

The shooting will continue to be investigated by police and other authorities—stay tuned for more details to come.