Santa Cruz County Couple Survives Las Vegas Massacre

A Santa Cruz County man was shot in the neck when he and his girlfriend came under attack during Sunday’s massacre in Las Vegas. Both were both able to escape.

“It went through my ear and entered right behind my jaw and then traveled down to above, a few inches above my collar bone,” Jeff Christerson told KPIX 5.

The bullet is still sitting inside Christerson’s neck. Doctors told him had it hit his carotid artery nearby, which carries blood to the brain, he would had suffered a very different fate.

“I just thank God that – I mean when we were lying there I was just praying the whole time and it was just a miracle that we got out the way we did,” Christerson said.

Just moments before Jason Aldean took the stage at the country music festival, Jeff and his girlfriend Jenna Kroboth snapped a photo. Minutes later, they found themselves taking cover on the ground. In the midst of the rapid-fire shots, he was hit.

“It was just like a burning sensation and I knew I got hit,” Christerson recalled.

Kroboth said, “When I heard Jeff say he was hit, I just remember I was like in sheer panic. And I felt like I couldn’t move, because anytime someone moved in front of us they were shot down.”

Eventually they ran to safety.

Christerson went to the hospital inside a police car, with gunshot victims in the front and back, and one lying across him. “It was just complete insanity, the entire time was just chaos,” he said.

“It was a complete shock, and my heart is broken. I think that it’s just the horrific thing I’ve ever seen and probably ever will,” Kroboth said.