A Canadian man who was shot in the head as he fled the Las Vegas massacre on Sunday has now started the epic 22-hour drive to get home.
Braden Matejka was in Las Vegas celebrating his 30th birthday with his girlfriend Amanda Homulos on Sunday when gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowds from his suite in the Mandalay Bay hotel.
Matejka was shot in the side of the head as they ran for their lives but miraculously made it out alive and has been in Sunrise Hospital ever since.
On Wednesday, he announced plans to begin the journey home after finally being told by doctors that it was safe enough for him to be discharged.
Due to the brain and skull injuries he sustained, he is not allowed to fly and must be driven the 1280 distance back to British Columbia.
Matejka and his girlfriend, like thousands of other music fans at the Route 91 Harvest festival, mistook the first shots on Sunday as fire crackers or fireworks.
Braden Matejka, 30, was shot in the head as he fled the Route 91 Harvest festival with his girlfriend Amanda Homulos on Sunday. He was discharged from Sunrise Hospital on Wednesday and will now be driven home
It was not until the second round of shots that he realized they were being shot at.
The couple started to run out of the venue, joining a stampede of others who frantically sprinted as Paddock picked off victims from the remaining crowds.
As he was running, Matejka said he felt a sudden blow to the head which he likened to being hit by a ‘sledgehammer’.
‘As soon as we started running again I hit the ground full sprint on my face, it felt as if someone hit me with a sledge hammer in the back of the head.
‘I got up and yelled for Amanda, saying I’ve been shot. She looks and the whole back of my shirt was covered in blood,’ he said.
With blood ‘spouting’ from the wound in his head and with his vision now blurry, he was able to get back up and carried on running, leaning on his girlfriend for support.
A stranger tied a t-shirt around his head to try to stop the bleeding, he said.
Finally, they hitched a ride from another Good Samaritan who bundled them in to the back of their car and sped them to hospital after being flagged down by someone else in the crowd.
‘This kind young lady drove like a bat out of hell to then closest hospital which then I was rushed into the OR and had my skull looked at,’ Matejka said.
A photograph of the man’s injuries shows where the bullet entered his skull and exited again. Doctors said he was lucky to be alive
Matejka was in intensive care at Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas until Tuesday
The bullet skimmed the side of his skull, making a clean entry and exit and narrowly avoiding his brain. He suffered a cracked skull and his brain was bleeding and swollen.q
Matejka was in Vegas celebrating his 30th birthday when he was shot
Matejka was kept in hospital until the bleeding stopped on Wednesday but was then discharged. It is not known who is driving him home.
The man, who is raising money to cover his medical bills on a GoFundMe page found here, said he felt lucky to be alive.
‘One inch, one change in events and I wouldn’t be here to talk to anyone about this. Every doctor, every nurse has told me to go get a lottery ticket.’
He also described the horror of watching others die beside him in the hospital after managing to escape and recalled how Paddock shot down crowds like they were ‘hunted cats’.
‘Seeing so many people getting brought to the hospital, passing away beside me.
‘Watching people being hunted down like cats. It sickens me.’
The final death toll from Sunday’s massacre is 59. The number of people who were injured has been lowered from initial reports of 527 to 489.
Police said confusion in the initial aftermath of the attack led to inflated statistics.
Paddock shot himself before police got get to him inside his room at the Mandalay Bay hotel where he had stashed 23 guns including modified rifles which he had transformed into fully-automatic weapons.
So far police have been unable to establish a motive for the massacre which is the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
This was the frantic scene on Sunday night as 22,000 people who were attending Route 91 Harvest festival ran for their lives as bullets rained down on the crowd