Rohnert Park woman shot in Las Vegas shares story of survival

LAS VEGAS, Nevada - Getting shot in the back doesn't sound like being lucky, but if you have to get shot, Savanna Chasco knows she is lucky.

"It's pretty close to my spine. They just told me I was very lucky that it was between the bones that come out of my lower spine," the 19-year-old Rohnert Park woman said from a Las Vegas hotel room on Tuesday.

Chasco was with three friends at Sunday night's country music concert when gunfire erupted.

"We heard this kind of popping noise and we thought the speakers were going out," she said.

As she and her friends ran,she felt something hit her in the back.

"It was very hot pain. You know when you hit your funny bone and it just stings and you can't do anything. It just stung so bad and I just dropped to my knees and rolled over on my back and I was like, guys I can't go."

A young man next to her also went down.

She made her way to the nearby MGM Grand, and finally found an ambulance where three other gunshot victims were already inside.

"One man was shot in the butt and I was laying in his lap and I said I'm so sorry this must be super uncomfortable for you right now. His wife was in the front seat. I didn't see her but she was shot in the foot. And next to me in a gurney was a person being resuscitated. By the time we got to the hospital they did not make it," she said.

The hospital was so crowded she was put on a gurney and had to stay in the hallway, where the scope of what had happened began to sink in.

"You know that was about the only times, when I would hear people screaming, crying. That's when it would kind of hit me but not so much as to what was really going on," she said.

Later she learned the fate of her friend who went down next to her didn't survive.

Chasco leaves Las Vegas with a friend gone, a bullet in her back, and insight uncommon for anyone, let alone a 19-year-old.

"You know I see MGM through the window right now and I kinda get a little anxiety. That's where I ran to but I'm not going to not come back here. I'm not going to be fearful of what this is or what happened. You just can't let the fear become you. You definitely have to be stronger than that and stand tall."