A man and woman who met shortly before the Las Vegas mass shooting have gotten married.
Chantal Melanson, 29, and Austin Monfort, 24, met in Las Vegas while they were in town for the Route 91 Harvest festival that took place in early October 2017—just one day before the shooting, Metro reports. “There was a reason we met when we did. We needed each other in this chaos,” Melanson told the outlet.
An Alberta, Canada native, Melanson attended the festival when a friend had a spare ticket. Monfort, a U.S. citizen, went to the festival for a friend’s birthday. Their paths crossed at a bar and they hit it off. They exchanged numbers and decided to meet at the festival the next day.
At the festival, just after 10 p.m. on Oct. 1, the shooter, Stephen Paddock, opened fire on the crowd from his 32nd-floor suite at the Mandalay Bay Hotel.
“We thought it was fireworks at the beginning since all big concerts usually have some kind of fireworks, however when it wasn’t stopping, everyone dropped to the ground,” Melanson told Metro. “We were on the ground across from each other so we both were looking at each other. We stayed on the ground for a while and the shots were not stopping.
“Austin’s friends’ parents told everyone to run to safety because the shots were non stop. Everyone ran in different directions but Austin stayed with me and we ran together. We ran across the entire festival grounds stopping a few times to get shelter.”
Chantal, Austin, and all of their friends escaped uninjured. “He held me throughout the night and kept me safe. After what we had just gone through, he was my safe place,” Melanson said.
The pair stayed in touch after Melanson flew home to Canada and Monfort to California. Monfort proposed in Laguna Beach after the couple had been together for 18 months. After their engagement, they applied for a K1 Visa, which allows for a U.S. citizen’s fiancé to move to America if they are married within 90 days. The visa was granted in September 2019, and the couple wed in a courthouse in November.
Since the fall, the couple had been preparing for a wedding celebration with family and friends in Las Vegas in May. However, the festivities have been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “However through it all, we are just so grateful that we both get to be quarantined together and not in different countries!’” Melanson told the outlet.
The Las Vegas shooting was one of the worst mass shootings to ever happen in the U.S., claiming the lives of 58 people and injuring 869. Paddock later died by suicide in the hotel room and was discovered by police.
