Las Vegas massacre: Off-duty Manhattan Beach officer carried victims out of shooting zone
MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (KABC) -- A Manhattan Beach Police Department employee was killed in the Las Vegas mass shooting Sunday night, but a wounded off-duty officer and two of the agency's other employees survived.
Despite his injuries, Officer Chad Swanson performed heroically during the hail of deadly gunfire.
"It was just indescribable. It was just chaos," Swanson said Tuesday at a press conference outside the department's headquarters.
He said he was still trying to process the horror he witnessed at the country music concert in Las Vegas, which was also attended by his colleague, records technician Rachael Parker, and two other department employees.
"We could hear the bullets; I could see them ricocheting off the ground," Swanson said. "There's really no safety. It's a concert in a wide-open area. I mean, there's really no place to hide."
Despite being hit in the arm by shrapnel, Swanson repeatedly ran into the shooting zone and carried out several victims.
"I was just focusing on helping everybody else that I could, taking out as many people as could, just trying to make sure that nobody was there left alone," the policeman said.
Sayeh Khan and another department employee rushed to the aid of their co-worker, Parker, and rescued another victim.
"While en route to the hospital, not only were the Manhattan Beach employees assisting Rachael -- who was still unconscious at the time - they were still providing lifesaving measures to the other shooting victim in the taxi," Manhattan Beach police Chief Eve Irvine said.
"The other shooting victim had been shot in the leg," Irvine continued, "and they credit Sayeh and the other employee with saving her life."
Swanson, who has been on the police force for six years, is a motor officer and member of the department's SWAT team.
"I just wanted to try help as many people as I could," he said.
