Iowa couple aided wounded as they fled Vegas shooter

IDA GROVE - Dr. Michael and Sara Luft, of Ida Grove, were 20 minutes into a Jason Aldean concert in Las Vegas on Sunday night when the terror began.

'I thought they were fireworks at first,” said Michael, a family physician who has treated patients around Ida Grove and Denison for 17 years. 'And then it sounded like they were going off right behind me.”

'I had a weird sensation in my stomach,” said Sara, a family nurse practitioner who serves clinics in Ida Grove, Denison and Omaha. 'I didn't see smoke, I didn't smell sulfur.”

The Lufts, who spent a weekend of rest-and-recreation attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival, watched as people hit the ground. For the first time in their lives, they were under fire.

'A guy who had served two tours in Afghanistan had met us and he told us these weren't fireworks,” Sara said. 'He told us to get down under our seats.”

The Lufts had club-level seats at the right of the stage. Rather than stand in the open area for the concert, they could sit or stand among several rows of seats positioned in front of a tent. They immediately dove under their seats, Michael atop Sara, protecting her.

'I told her that we'd make it through this,” he said. 'And that we weren't moving.”

Sara and Michael texted their children and other loved ones as shots rained down. Michael picked his head up long enough to see a victim crumble to the ground.

The former soldier stressed calm among those around him. The Lufts obliged, awaiting his instruction.

'He said that when the shooting stops for a bit, the shooters will reload,” Michael recalled. 'And then he wanted us to follow him.”

At the time, no one knew if there was one shooter or several.

When the shooting stopped temporarily, the Lufts crawled on their stomachs. They reached the stairs leading from the seats and encountered a woman who joined an emergency medical technician in administering CPR to a woman who had been shot in the head.

'As you looked out, you could see bodies not moving,” Sara said. 'There was blood everywhere.”

The Lufts sprinted as a portion of the crowd merged to join them in a mad dash. Sara tripped and began to fall as another round of shots started. The group dove to the ground and waited out this second barrage.

'We then got up and began running toward the back of the venue when our professional instincts kicked in,” Sara said.

'Sara kept trying to help people,” said Michael, who pulled her along. He wanted to find a better place in which they could offer assistance. The middle of a firing range, so to speak, was not that place.

They found temporary refuge beneath bleachers at the back of the concert site. As bullets continued to strafe the complex, Michael helped move debris and a barricade before pulling an elderly woman in a wheelchair to safety. Sara, meantime, advised two shooting victims to keep the pressure on their wounds, one, a gunshot to a leg, the other to an arm.

The group found an area where the fence encircling the complex had been broken or cut apart. The Lufts squeezed that opening and ran across an eight-lane road to the employee entrance at the nearby Tropicana resort. They stayed in the basement of the Tropicana for 30 minutes, using their phones to contact their children.

'We texted our kids to say that we were OK,” Michael said. 'And the kids sent messages back, saying there may be multiple shooters.”

At the time, nobody knew for sure.

The Lufts, who continued to follow directions and suggestions from their children, found their way back to their room at Vdara Hotel & Spa just after midnight. They shut off the lights in their room, gathered their thoughts and let loved ones know they'd made it out alive.

The Lufts reached Ida Grove on Monday afternoon and gave their children hugs and kisses.