Las Vegas shooting survivor Dawn Cox, a Santa Clarita resident, is sharing her story of survival on Oct. 1, and how she felt the moment she realized her sister had disappeared in the chaos.

Cox, along with a group five other women, including her sister, found themselves in the VIP section at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, on the right side of the stage. When turned to look toward the stage, Mandalay Bay would have been parallel to her right shoulder, putting her directly under the line of gunfire.

The group of six decided to return to the VIP section during Jake Owen’s performance to relax with the intentions of returning to general admission when Jason Aldean began his performance.

Related: Las Vegas Shooting Stories Of Survival: Mother-Daughter Duo Share Their Experience, How They Were Able To Escape

“Jason started and we were still in VIP, and luckily, for whatever reason, my sister and one of my girlfriends took their shoes off because their feet were hurting,” Cox explained. “When we decided to go back out into (General Admission) for Jason Aldean, we couldn’t because they didn’t have shoes on.”

When the gunfire began, Cox and her group were dancing in the VIP section, and initially Cox believed an incident was occuring on the strip, not in the venue, because the shots sounded as if they were coming from far away.

“Those shots went off and then it went away, and Jason kept singing so we just kept dancing. And then the first round of rapid gunfire started,” she said. “It must have been the third round, the second rapid gunfire that we realized what it was and Jason was taken off the stage, and at that point we just hit the ground.”

Related: Las Vegas Shooting: Santa Clarita Attorney Shares Alleged Security Issues At Route 91 Harvest Festival

When Cox dropped to the floor, she called her husband to tell him what was happening. While on the phone, another round of gunfire began, prompting her husband to tell her to stay down.

“At 10:13, I said to my husband, ‘I’m hanging up, I’m going to run. We’re getting out of here,’” Cox explained. “I hung up and we got up to run and my sister was not there.”

They chose to make a run for it during a long pause in the gunfire, during which they thought the shooting had come to an end. As they were running however, another round of gunfire began.

“We attempted to exit the venue and another round of gunfire started, and my friends I was with jumped behind a stand where you could get food,” Cox said. “They yelled for me to come and I remember looking at them and I said, ‘I’ve got to find my sister.’”

Cox separated herself from the group and went off alone in search for her sister. She exited the venue and ran onto the strip.

“I just had to find her. I did not know which direction she went, and then my other sister, who did not go with us, had already been in contact with her and knew where she was,” she said. “She called me and said she had made it to the Excalibur and I looked up and I saw the Excalibur and that is where I ran.”

It was in the Excalibur casino where the two sisters were reunited and sat together in front of a TV in the casino hearing the details of the shooting. At this point, all the casinos on the strip had been notified of the shooting and were put on lockdown.

After the shooting, Cox describes the differences in the way each member of the group feels and tells the story of that night. For example, Cox says her sister is very shaky and jittery and  jumped when a champagne bottle was popped open, but she herself does not feel this way.

“There were six of us in the group of girls that went for the weekend and every one of us has a slightly different story, and we all went through exactly the same thing,” Cox explained. “I’m not scared. If Route 91 happens again in that same spot … I would be there.”

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