The Clark County Fire Department released three hours of radio traffic recordings on Friday, Nov. 3, from the night of the Las Vegas shooting massacre.
The transmissions show the chaos that unfolded starting at 10 p.m. on Oct.1 when alleged gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival killing 58 people and injuring more than 500 before he turned the gun on himself.
The recordings reveal that the first ambulances arrived on the concert grounds 25 minutes after the shooting began.
The files also show an erroneous report, about two hours into the recording, that the University Medical Center (UMC) has run out of beds. The UMC is the state’s only level 1 trauma center. It took 30 minutes to clear up the confusion.
The emergency communications also reveal that first responders ran out of ambulances and had to improvise.
“Chief, we’re currently loading patients into private vehicles. We have no more ambulances, and we’re getting pickup trucks full of patients coming in,” Engine 11 reported from near the intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Koval Lane.
The audio recordings also show that shootings were reported at six hotels and the McCarran International Airport. Reports of shots fired came from the New York-New York, MGM Grand, Tropicana Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood Resort, Caesars Palace, and Hooters Hotel.
The fire chief told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the reports were erroneous. Cassell said that as victims fled to nearby hotels people inside those buildings thought that the shooting occurred there.
The radio traffic from the police department also showed that multiple active shooters were reported at multiple hotels.
Cassell praised his personnel for a calm and composed reaction to the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history.
“They’re able to stay that calm because we practice radio discipline, we preach radio discipline,” he said. “If someone had put that in front of me and I hadn’t known what happened, I would have thought it was a drill because of how professional and calm everyone sounded.”
Listen to the full audio:
