As soon as John Carter and Alison Byler found out the firecracker sound they’d heard outside of Union Station on Wednesday was gunfire, they started telling parents to grab their kids and leave the area.

The Cassville couple said they were about 70 yards to the west of the stage outside of Union Station when gunfire erupted at the end of the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally.

“We were probably one of the first ones to start jumping over barricades, running through about 40 yards of people telling them, ‘There’s a shooter. You need to get your family out of here. You need to get down,’” Carter, 33, said.

The couple said they made their way toward the entrance of Union Station and jumped over a fence. Then they quickly started helping others get through.

“People started rushing in that way. We helped a girl with probably a four-month-old baby wrapped around her chest, and helped her over because the barricades were so tall. And then we took her behind a box toward the entrance to get down,” Carter said. “We found a kid who couldn’t find his parents, and we had him bunker down with us. Then we helped a mom with her daughter get over.”

As shots rang out just before 2 p.m. Wednesday, the huge crowd of fans surrounding Union Station started fleeing the area. Police have since confirmed, during a news conference Thursday, that the mass shooting killed one person, Johnson County mom Lisa Lopez-Galvan, and left 22 injured. Half of the victims were under the age of 16.

Carter and Byler, who are both parents, said their immediate reaction was to make sure others, especially children, got to a safe place. Along with dozens of others, the couple eventually made their way inside Union Station, a scene Carter described as chaotic and filled with “high, intense stress.”

“We went in and started talking to the people working the event at the desk telling them what was happening, and they looked at me like I was crazy. Another worker told us the bathrooms are the safest spot, so we started telling everyone to grab their children and get inside the restrooms,” he said.

The couple estimated they helped at least eight people over barricades and assisted a couple of others as they moved through Union Station. After hunkering down with other families in the bathrooms, they said they exited through the north end of the building.

Byler, 28, said they brought a few lost children to police officers in hopes they could be reunited with their parents.

“It was very chaotic. People were pushing past each other. A lot of elderly people and kids were basically getting trampled,” Carter said. “We tried to get as many people’s attention as possible, tried to get them covered and to get down.”

They were among many in the crowd who assisted others during the gunfire and its aftermath.

An ER nurse from Kentucky, Chasitty Logsdon, said her training kicked in as she rushed to help one of the shooting victims before medics arrived.

Friends Reese Randall, 20, and Shayla Flowers, 21, who also were in the crowd outside Union Station, told The Star on Wednesday that some older men used their bodies to shield them when gunshots rang out. They said comforting a woman nearby who appeared to be having a panic attack helped them get through the event.

Shawnee Mission East sophomore Gabe Wallace recounted how Chiefs head coach Andy Reid comforted him when he was separated from his friends.

For Carter and Byler, they said the instinct to stop and ensure others were safe came naturally.

“I think it’s just kinda the way we grew up. We were taught to try to stick up for other people,” Carter said. “We have kids ourselves. And we always kind of react to situations that way. Any time we see a wreck on the side of the road, we stop and make sure everyone’s O.K. It is kind of the mindset we grew up with.”

Back at work on Thursday, Carter said his body is still sore from helping people climb over the barricades.

“There was so much adrenaline rushing through me at that time. It’s hard to explain. You kind of have to go through it, to be honest. It was one of the scariest events I’ve ever experienced,” he said.

“Our prayers are with the families,” Byler added. “We are hoping all of those kids are OK. It was a tragic ending to what was an amazing event.”