John Patterson, who is on holiday with a group of men from Jersey, was in nearby Planet Hollywood Casino when the shots were fired at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas on Sunday night.
At least 59 people were killed and more than 500 injured in the shooting.
The gunman, 64-year-old Stephen Craig Paddock, of Mesquite, Nevada, was found dead in a room in the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino on Las Vegas Strip with as many as ten firearms. SWAT officers who stormed the gunman’s room found that he had killed himself.
The Jersey business consultant was out having his first drinks of the trip when he heard a ‘shooter was on the loose’. Mr Patterson is due to be staying in Las Vegas until Tuesday.
He said: ‘We were in Planet Hollywood and people started running towards us saying there was a shooter on the loose and that they’d heard shots.
‘The bar shut the shutters and we all went into the kitchen to hide. We were there for about an hour. There were lots of people panicking and crying and there were lots of rumours going around which didn’t help.
‘I was fine – I wasn’t panicking too much and it felt safe enough to move between the bar and the kitchen but they cleared the casino floor in our hotel which I think is pretty unprecedented.’
He added: ‘Unfortunately these kind of shootings seem to be the new norm.’
On Twitter, the UK’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, wrote: ‘The UK’s thoughts are with the victims and the emergency services responding to the appalling attack in Las Vegas.’
