With dozens dying, paramedics faced a life-or-death question: Who to help first?

After the nightmare of bullets had ended, another horror began: Hundreds lay on the ground wounded, dozens were dead or dying and thousands had scattered amid the confusion — leaving families and friends separated and unsure about their loved ones.

When paramedics got to the scene of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, which took place at a country music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Sunday night, first responders had begun placing color-coded stickers on the bodies of all the victims to triage them.

Green was for minor injuries, and yellow was for non-life threatening injuries.

Red was for life-threatening injuries — ones that meant victims should be rushed to the hospital as quickly as possible.

And black was for the dead, or those who were soon expected to die.

“We had to take the red-tagged patients first,” Dean Weber, a 31-year-old paramedic, told People magazine. “But it’s not always that easy. People were begging me to take them because they were in so much pain.”

Many first responders who arrived at the scene had no clue how overwhelming the carnage would be.

“You can train mentally as much as you can, but until you actually face the situation, you’ll never know how you'll respond,” first responder Damon Schilling, director of AMR MedicWest, told KTNV.

As of Monday night, authorities said at least 59 people had died and 527 had been wounded in the shooting. Police identified the gunman as Stephen Paddock, 64, and said he shot at the crowd of 22,000 from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay casino hotel.

Paddock killed himself before officers stormed his room, but concertgoers reported that the gunfire had lasted for 10 minutes.

Witnesses commented on how quickly first responders got to work trying to help, even before law enforcement had secured the scene.

“I saw hundreds of people standing up and running towards the danger,” Russell Bleck, who was at the concert, told Fox News.

He called the shooting a scene of “pure chaos and carnage.”

Bleck also noted in an interview with the TODAY show that it wasn’t just paramedics and police helping victims.

“You saw a lot of ex-military just jump into gear. I saw guys plugging bullet holes with their fingers,” Bleck said. “The amount of bravery I saw there, words can’t describe what it was like.”

But with so many dead and wounded, it was impossible to get help to everyone as quickly as they needed it.

“One woman grabbed at my ankle and we locked eyes. All she could say was ‘please.’ She had tears all over her face,” Weber told People. “But she was tagged in yellow, and there were people in red. So I had to say, ‘I’m so sorry. Someone will be back for you soon.’”

Once victims reached the hospital, medical teams there were also overwhelmed.

“No one can say they’ve seen anything like this,” Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jeffrey Murawsky told NPR on Monday. “We’ve seen events that have brought us 30 patients at once.”

Murawsky said the hospital saw 180 patients injured in the incident, including 124 with gunshot wounds. That led the hospital to call in 100 extra doctors and 100 extra nurses, technicians and other support staff.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval called the response the “finest hour” for his state’s law enforcement and emergency responders, according to CBS News.

“You see courage and compassion there, people helping total strangers, people risking their own lives to help people,” Sandoval said. “That really speaks to the character of America. This is the Nevada family at its finest.”

President Donald Trump, also commenting on the shooting, said it was “miraculous” that police located the gunman so quickly.

This story was originally published October 2, 2017 at 5:55 PM with the headline "With dozens dying, paramedics faced a life-or-death question: Who to help first?."