Liberal MP Corey Wingard’s brother Brenton caught in Las Vegas mass shooting — but was not injured

BRENTON Wingard, the brother of South Australian Liberal MP Corey, had attended the same Las Vegas concert for four years — he never encountered any trouble. Then the bullets started flying around him.

BRENTON Wingard had attended the same Las Vegas concert for four years — he never encountered any trouble. Then the bullets started flying around him.

Brenton, 44, the brother of Liberal MP Corey Wingard, and his wife Jessie were with friends in a VIP section of the Route 91 festival when a lone gunman fired into the crowd.

“It was our fourth year at the festival and fourth standing in roughly the same spot,” Brenton, who now lives in Las Vegas, said.

“It was the last night of the concert and Jason Aldean was about halfway through his set. He was just starting to get going, maybe six or seven songs in when we heard tap-tap-tap.”

“Everyone started looking around and up in the sky thinking it was firecrackers. Then we heard it again, tap-tap-tap.”

“I thought it was coming from somewhere near the toilets.”

“The third time we heard it I saw someone on the ground being given CPR. I thought to myself what the hell is going on?”

Corey Wingard (right) and his wife Emma (left) at the wedding of Corey's brother Brenton to Jessie Timinski.

High above Brenton, a lone gunman opened fire at the open-air festival, unloading hundreds of rounds of ammunition from a room high up at the Mandalay Bay casino complex.

Witnesses say the shots appeared to come from a balcony on the adjoining casino, aimed at the crowd of 30,000 people on the ground below.

“By the third time Jason Aldean was off the stage and everyone started freaking out.”

“A guy next to me said it was only fireworks but then someone ran past saying a person has been shot in the face.

“I asked the guy what was going on and he looked scared and ran off. I looked over at my wife and her friends who were terrified.”

“We were close to the bleachers to so we ripped off the cladding and crawled inside.”

Brenton, Jessie and their friends were joined in the bleachers by others seeking shelter.

“We crawled under there and waited five minutes, which seemed like forever when we heard thuds from above us,” Brenton said.

Just spoke to my brother who was there and was lucky to escape. People around him were hit and they were forced to hide under the stage #wow https://t.co/Vv3MEGU8Tw

— Corey Wingard (@Corey_Wingard) October 2, 2017

He said more people came into the bleachers with their flashlights on and he feared they may have been the shooter.

“I thought this is it, this is the end, but it was just someone who told us I get out and run.”

“I asked him whether it was safe and he said ‘I don’t know, but the shooting has stopped and know is the best time to go’.

“So we crawled out and took off across the field where people had been shot.

“Bodies were lying there and others were being hauled off in make shift stretchers.

“We didn’t see any police until we got to the back of the stage where there were two officers ducking behind a car.

“They just said keep running.”

Crowd of people at the Route 91 concert. Picture: David Becker/Getty Images/AFP

The makeshift group, including a woman they had met under the bleachers who was separated from her friends, took off down the strip.

“Someone managed to get an Uber and we all piled in,” Brenton said.

Back at his Las Vegas home, Brenton was watching the drama unfold on television and keeping in contact with other friends who were in a hotel room at the Tropicana.

“She said there was SWAT running around the corridors and the power was off but last I heard police had got things under control,” Brenton said.

His brother Corey, the South Australian Sport and Racing shadow minister, said the first he heard of the life threatening situation was when Brenton texted him saying he was hiding from the shooting.

“I got a text from him about 4pm before I knew anything about it,” Corey said.

“He said he was in an active shooting situation at the concert and was hiding near the stage.

“People got hit around him and they all bundled in under the stands seeking shelter.”

Originally published as Liberal MP Corey Wingard’s brother Brenton caught in Las Vegas mass shooting — but was not injured