Minnesotans continue to heal after experiencing Las Vegas shooting

(KMSP) - Back here in Minnesota, families are grieving after the tragedy in Las Vegas, and those who barely escaped the attacks are spending time with loved ones.

Eden Prairie resident Emily Alvarez talked about her brother’s death, but became too upset to discuss it for long. Alvarez is a special education teacher at Eagle Ridge Academy, where administrators say they are grieving together as they help her with this loss.

Las Vegas authorities are still releasing the names of the innocent people gunned down.

More than 500 were injured, and about 45 of them are still in critical condition.

Former Gophers football standout Jon Hoese was with a group of friends at the Route 91 Harvest Festival when some of them were shot.

“It was like, ‘pow, pow, pow, pow,’" he described.

Hoese said one of his female friends was shot in the knee and another male friend was shot near the buttocks.

He and Tony McDonald tried to help them, but kept hearing gunfire.

"The angle of where this guy was shooting, I didn't know if it was ricochets or actual bullets, but you could just hear those off the building we were in," Hoese said.

Both men said many people were confused on how to get out of the festival grounds and many became trapped. At one point they didn't know how many gunmen there were because bullets just kept whizzing around them.

"We didn't know how many shooters there were,” McDonald said. “The gunshot was fully automatic - which I don't know a lot about guns, but there were so many shots that it sounded like several shooters."

Both men checked on their friends Tuesday and they are in good spirits. They're expected to make a full recovery.