A decision to leave the Route 91 music festival in Las Vegas early may have saved a Kelowna woman's life.
Taylor Kizyma, who was at the festival with her mother and sister, says they left the concert just 15 minutes before a gunman opened fire on the crowd.
She says they found out that a shooting had occurred shortly after arriving at their nearby hotel, the Excalibur Hotel and Casino, although they assumed it involved just a person or two.
It wasn’t until news stations started reporting on death tolls and people started running into their hotel lobby to take cover that she realized how serious it was.
“Everybody is running towards us and there are people full of blood and screaming and crying and nobody knows what’s going on,” she says.
The scene outside was just as chaotic.
“There was 17 cop cars going back and forth and there was an ambulance, and there was a helicopter hovering above, just outside our hotel room, having a spot light down searching the area below.”
Kizyma says she had spent some of the festival with 4 Winfield residents, one of whom was grazed by a bullet, but is expected to be ok.
She credits the decision to leave early to her late grandmother, who would have turned 103 years old on Sunday.
“I truly believe that she was definitely looking down on us cause we had this gut feeling that there was no point in staying and we need to go.”
Kizyma, who doesn’t plan on travelling again for a while because of the incident and has already cancelled a trip to Mexico next month, will be coming back home to Kelowna on Wednesday.
She says the city doesn't have the Vegas vibe it did just days ago.
"There are girls crying, everybody is shaken up, everybody looks dazed and the streets are bare and empty and casino’s very empty. The pool is usually packed and there is a few people that are slowly coming out."