Jesus Campos, the hero security guard shot in the leg by Stephen Paddock before Paddock began his killing spree, is coming out of hiding and breaking his silence with an interview on Ellen.
Campos and Stephen Schuck, a maintenance man who discovered the 32nd floor emergency exits barred and reported a potential active shooter to hotel management, appeared with chat show host Ellen Degeneres in an episode that taped Tuesday, but will air Wednesday afternoon.
“At that time I heard what I assumed was drilling sounds. And I believed that they were in the area working somehow,” Campos reportedly told Ellen during the taping. He believes those “drilling sounds” might have been Paddock opening fire on the Route 91 Music festival below.
Campos also says he alerted maintenance to the blocked door, and then accidentally let a different door slam behind him; that’s the sound he believes led Stephen Paddock to open fire through his suite door into the hallway, peppering the 32nd floor with nearly 200 bullets.
“As I was walking down, I heard rapid fire and at first I took cover,” he said. “I felt a burning sensation. I went to go lift my pant leg up and I saw the blood.”
Shuck arrived on the scene just as Campos was shot. Campos told him to “get down,” and then started telling guests, who by then were exiting their rooms to investigate the hallway commotion, to get back inside their suites.
Both Campos and Schuck have been quiet about their heroic involvement in September’s shooting. Campos was scheduled for several interviews, but ducked out at the last second, telling producers he had been rushed to an emergency medical facility.
After that, Campos seemed to vanish into thin air and went so radio silent that his union, earlier this week, said they had lost track of his whereabouts and were concerned that he’d “disappeared.”