‘I was holding my wife under the table’: Hong Kong singer Leo Ku was in Las Vegas when deadly shooting took place
The couple were at another hotel at the time and recall being haunted all night by speculation as horrific event unfolded nearby
Hong Kong pop singer Leo Ku Kui-kei and his wife have described their experience of being in Las Vegas during the worst mass shooting in recent US history, with a death toll of at least 59 and more than 500 injured.
The couple and their friends hid under a gambling table in the Bellagio hotel when the sound of gunfire from the Mandalay Bay Resort, which is 2.6km away, broke out. The equivalent distance in Hong Kong is from the Central Harbourfront to Victoria Park.
The Bellagio crowd panicked and people were scrambling for cover, Ku recalled on a Hong Kong radio programme on Tuesday morning. He was speaking from Las Vegas.
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Ku had arrived with his wife in the Nevada city – where they got married in 2014 – on Sunday local time for “a few days off” after wrapping up his concert in San Francisco.
At about 10pm on Sunday night, a 64-year-old local resident opened fire on more than 22,000 people at an outdoor music festival at Mandalay Bay.
“I was holding my wife in my arms under the table, having no idea [where exactly was the shooting occurring], what I could do, and what would happen next,” Ku said, adding that he fell into a short trance as people around him were running and screaming.
When he regained his senses, they moved to a stairway at the back of the building for shelter as the Bellagio had suspended all lifts. They met a family from South Korea and together they all moved to a higher floor of the hotel to seek safety.