Michael Anderson, a bartender at Club Q, recalled that he heard "a few popping sounds" and initially assumed someone inside the club might have been clapping.
In the dark of the club, Anderson saw "a silhouette of a person" clutching a long gun and heard one loud pop after another.
"I don't know who stopped him," Anderson told NBC News, "but I'm grateful, because they most certainly saved my life last night."
He has processed this much, Loveall said: "You don't need to take lives or cause pain and suffering to people that you don't know, you don't understand.
"It's that adrenaline of, 'I can’t think, and I don’t know what to do.'