Las Vegas mass shooting survivors were inside California bar when gunman opened fire

'There’s people that live a whole lifetime without seeing this, and then there’s people that have seen it twice'

(AP)

Survivors of last year's mass shooting in Las Vegas were inside a California bar when a gunman opened fire and killed 12 people on Wednesday night.

The Borderline Bar & Grill, located in Thousand Oaks, had hundreds of people inside their establishment for their “college country night” when police believe Ian David Long—a Marine Corps veteran—fired at patrons around 11:30pm. The authorities found Mr Long dead inside the bar, but are unsure of how he died.

An employee at Borderline Bar & Grill survived the mass shooting in Las Vegas - where 58 people were killed - in October 2017.

“A lot of people in the Route 91 [Las Vegas] situation go here,” Chandler Gunn, 23, told the Los Angeles Times. “There’s people that live a whole lifetime without seeing this, and then there’s people that have seen it twice.”

Josh Coaly, a 27-year-old who was at the bar with his father during the shooting, said he had been to Borderline multiple times with his friends, one of whom also survived the Route 91 shooting.

Carl Edgar, 24, a regular at Borderline, was at the bar with his 20 friends—some of whom also survived the Las Vegas shooting—when Mr Long fired bullets. Mr Edgar told LA Times his friends are safe and that he is hopeful that his friends will get through the horrific incident.

“As far as I know, all of my friends are OK, safe,” Mr Edgar said. “There are a few people we can’t get a hold of, but in these situations, people usually turn off their phones to be safe so I’m not gonna get too worried. A lot of my friends survived Route 91. If they survived that, they’ll survive this.”

Reporters on the scene have also tweeted hearing similar stories from Wednesday’s mass shootings survivors that a few of the people inside Borderline were also present at the Las Vegas shooting.

On October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock, 64, fired over 1,000 rounds at a crowd of concert-goers at the Route 91 country music festival from his Mandalay Bay Hotel suite on the 32nd floor. As well as the dozens killed he injured 851 others, making it the deadliest mass shooting an individual committed on US soil.

Mr Paddock was found dead in his hotel room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The authorities have not yet been able to determine his motive.