Cherry Valley Woman Escapes Las Vegas Massacre, Shares Terrifying Experience

CHERRY VALLEY, CA — It was supposed to be a relaxing, fun and memorable weekend celebrating their wedding anniversary. But for Natalie and Bob May of Cherry Valley, it will only remain a memorable one — and for all the wrong reasons.

However, unlike 58 other concertgoers, the duo — who had headed to the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival to celebrate their love for each other and country music — were fortunate to make it out of the event with their lives, and without suffering physical harm as hundreds of others did. Their story is just one of the many that will come out of the tragedy which struck the nation on Sunday night; a story that sheds some light on how terrifying the 10 minutes of bullets raining down on an innocent crowd really was.

"I'm so grateful we made it home," Natalie May told Patch. "I'm not sure how but we did."

May said she was enjoying the closing night of the festival as Jason Aldean was into the first few songs of his set when she heard the gunfire. Only, she had no idea it was gunfire that she was hearing.

"It sounded like fireworks and I looked to my right and I said 'Oh look, Bob, there's fireworks," she said.

Soon though, something clicked that the noise was not planned and she said "'Bob, I don't think that's part of the show.'"

Then, things started to change rapidly as Natalie's husband was the first of the couple who realized that someone was shooting at them.

"We got down, him and I, and he covered me," she described of that moment. "I was right next to those barriers where the sound guys were and we looked right in front of us... I was standing next to her sister, behind her sister's husband, and her sister got shot right there and that's when Bob said 'That woman just got shot, Natalie. We have to get out of here.'

"I was just holding onto my lemonade cup, and he kept saying we have to get over [the barrier for the sound equipment] and I said 'I can't, I can't'... It's tall; I'm short; I wasn't going to make it; I froze; I didn't know what to do."

"And he said 'No, Natalie, we have to get over there. Drop the f***ing cup and get over there.'"

That's when she says she tried to jump over the barrier and Bob helped push her over. He soon followed suit, and the two landed near a man who had already been shot.

"Right within a foot or two of us was another man there, in a pool of blood."

She later learned that a woman behind her had been fatally shot as well.

The duo then ran around to the sound equipment platform and hid underneath for a moment.

"I just thought right there... I'm going to die," Natalie said, describing the sound of gunfire like quarters hitting the metal around them. "You just hear cling, cling, cling."

When there was eventually a brief pause in the gunfire, the two got up and continued running, stopping for shelter where they could along the way, witnessing strangers help strangers and loved ones helping loved ones.

"There was so much of husbands, men laying over women to protect us; and then these police officers were running in and protecting us with themselves," Natalie said. "They didn't have any tactical gear, these were officers off the street protecting us with their own bodies."

Eventually, they made it into the back shipping parking lot for The Tropicana, where the Mays continued running through the blood-stained hotel.

"I've never seen so much blood, just everywhere."

After a false report of another possible shooter, Natalie and Bob ended up hiding in an office of The Tropicana with a small group of other people. People who she doesn't know and will likely never see again, but people with whom she now shares a special bond and story of survival.

It wasn't until about two hours later that hotel security came to escort them to a ballroom at the hotel, where they then waited for another several hours before they could return to their room (after briefly staying in a room at the Luxor while security cleared their room at the Delano) and gather their belongings. They rushed home shortly thereafter.

Another woman from the area, 35-year-old Hannah Ahlers of Beaumont was not as fortunate as May. She has been named as one of the 58 people killed in the deadly attack.

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— Patch photo by Renee Schiavone