Maritimers caught in the middle of the deadliest shooting in modern American history say they were forced to run towards the gunfire in order to survive.

Allan Hendsbee and his wife Michelle from Queensport, N.S., were in Vegas for their 25th wedding anniversary. They were in the middle of the concert field when shots rang out.

“You could hear a ‘pop, pop, pop,’” Hendsbee told CTV News. “At first I thought it was gunshots, but thought, ‘No, it can't be.’"

Hendsbee says like many people, he at first thought it was fireworks.

"Until the music stopped and then the shots got louder and then everyone started screaming and running in every direction," he says.

Hendsbee grabbed his wife’s hand and, surprisingly, ran towards the gunfire, as it was the closest place to seek shelter between vendor staging.

"We wiggled our way in through the pipes and a young girl fell against us and fell on the ground,” he says. “I picked her up and she was screaming, ‘I don't want to die, I don't want to die.’”

Hendsbee says he layed over top of his wife and the girl as they hid under the staging. Eventually they decided to make a run for it, taking the girl with them.

"There was a pickup truck went by and there was, I'm going to say 15 on the back of that truck, and I know some of them were shot or injured. They were stacked on the truck."

Hendsbee and his wife ran to another hotel where they were put up for the night. The young girl was located by her husband.

"Thankful to be alive,” Hendsbee says. “Thankful for all the people we met here. They've been amazing. Our heart to goes out to everyone they hurt last night. Terrible thing."

Another couple, Shelly Adams and Adam Blooi from Yarmouth, along with three of their friends, were in the bleachers listening to the music when the shots rang out.

“They said, ‘Run, run, there's a shooter,’ so we ran outside and tried to find another place, just scared to death,” says Shelly Adams. “We hid in some bushes with two ladies for a while, and then we thought, ‘We have to make a move.’”

Panicked, they ran to their hotel more than a mile away, passing police, ambulance and first responders along the way. Today, they’re lining up to donate desperately-needed blood alongside hundreds of other people, as their Las Vegas getaway ends in a way they could never have imagined.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Heather Butts.