A three-day country music event turned into hell on earth Sunday night in Las Vegas as a gunman opened fire on hundreds of music fans, killing at least 50 and injuring more than 400.

Santa Clarita concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest Festival recounted their night of terror as rapid-fire gunshots were heard while singer Jason Aldean performed onstage.

“When the first pop went off, we all thought it was fireworks,” Melissa Gilman said. “Then when the assault rifle started I dropped to the ground with my friends.”

In the chaos, Gilman became separated from her friends and said she witnessed piles of people on the ground, blood everywhere, people crying for their loved ones, as she was trying to find safe ground.

Melissa Gilman, right, attends the Route 91 Harvest Festival hours before the shooting.

“I got to the Tropicana,” Gilman said. “It was chaos – lots of blood and injured people coming through. It was the scariest feeling I could have ever imagined. Every time I would drop to the ground and listen to shots hitting people and objects, all I could think is, ‘please not me next.’”

Robynn Eastman Coleman attended the concert with her husband and two other friends but all were quickly separated when they heard the barrage of gunfire.

“I ran and hid in a hotel kitchen for hours having no idea if they were alive or dead as I didn’t have my phone,” Coleman said. “By the grace of God and the kindness of strangers, I was reunited with them 4 hours later.”

Coleman also said her friend was injured trying to run for cover.

“She needed 20 staples in her leg after she tore her leg open trying to jump the fence,” Coleman said.

Gilman and Coleman’s group have all been reunited and all are safe.

“I have a whole new perspective on life and though I will never be the same,” Coleman later said in her Facebook message to friends. “I will move forward through life grateful that I got a second chance. Prayers go out to all who were victims of this horrible violence.”

The shooting occurred at approximately 10:08 p.m. Sunday.

Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said on Monday morning his department responded to reports of shots coming from the direction of the Mandalay Bay.

They determined the shots were coming from the 32-second floor of the hotel.

“Officers responded to that location (Mandalay Bay) and engaged the suspect,” Lombardo said in a news conference. “He is dead.”

The shooting is said to be the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.