'Chills go up your spine': at California bar, Vegas live survivors through another shoot | US news

The Borderline Bar and Grill has become a safe haven for survivors of the last year's mbadacre at the Las Vegas country music festival.

On Wednesday night, a terrifyingly familiar scene, when bullets began flying again.

Brendan Kelly, a 22-year-old Marine, was one of them.

"I already did not want it," said Kelly outside Thursday Thousand Oaks home. "The second time around does not get any easier."

Kelly, said he heard "pop, pop" and instantly knew it was gunfire.

"The chills go up your spine. You do not think it's real – again, "he said.

Kelly said he threw two of his friends to the floor and covered them with his body. Then he got a look at the shooter and the terror unfolding and decided they needed to escape.

Kelly said he was going to get out of the water, using his belt, T-shirt and navy training, applied to his friend's bleeding arm.

After the shooting, Kelly said he and another marine friend. Two of his friends were among those killed.

Kelly has a large tattoo on his left arm memorializing the Las Vegas shooting, which left 58 dead. On his other arm Thursday, he still had his wristband from the bar.

When the Las Vegas gunman opens up a room, Kelly said he's a friend of the room. Armed with a knife in case an attacker came in, he hunkered down and waited with 40 other people for four hours.

He said living through Vegas changed his life. He does not know how to have a second mbadage.

"Everywhere I go, everything is affected," he said. "I do not sit in a room with my back to the door. You're always picking up on social cues. You're always overbadyzing people trying to figure out if something was going down, 'What would I do?'

Kelly said the Borderline had become a safe haven for dozens of Vegas survivors.

"It is our home," he said.

A few weeks after the Las Vegas shooting, Borderline held a benefit concert of the survivors holding up a "Route 91" sign inside the bar at a six- month anniversary event.

Kelly said he'll be looking for God for comfort in the coming weeks and months.

"I know that, being a religious person, that God is never going to give me anything more than I can handle," he said. "I'm here for a reason."

Chandler Gunn, 23, told the Los Angeles Times that a friend who survived the Vegas shooting works at the bar. When Gunn learned about the shooting, he rushed to Borderline.

Gunn said his friend, whose name he did not provide, escaped safely out of the back.

"There's a lot of people living there," he said.

In social media posts, Molly Mauer said she was at Borderline and also survived Vegas.

"I can not believe I'm saying this again. I'm alive and safe, "she said on Facebook.