22-year-old South African Who Hid Among The Dead For Over An Hour

A 22-year-old somehow survived a horrible massacre in Paris at the Bataclan concert center on Friday night. Strapped with explosives and armed with machine guns, terrorists slaughtered a crowd that had gathered to enjoy American rock in central Paris. The shooting only stopped when the attackers run out of bullets, a Bataclan massacre survivor said.

Isobel Bowdery, a 22-year old South African who hid among the dead for over an hour as the nightmare unfolded around her  has penned a vivid account of the experience. Her survivor story, recounted in grave detail, has been shared more than 600,000 times as of Sunday afternoon since she posted it on Facebook with a photo of her blood-stained shirt.

Bowdery says what happened on the night wasn’t just a terrorist attack,” it was a massacre,”. “Dozens of people were shot right in front of me. Pools of blood filled the floor. Cries of grown men who held their girlfriends dead bodies pierced the small music venue. Futures demolished, families heartbroken. in an instant. Shocked and alone, I pretended to be dead for over an hour, lying among people who could see their loved ones motionless.”

The University of Cape Town graduate pointed out that the night offered no hints of what was to come. The American rock band Eagles of Death Metal had been onstage for an hour when the gunmen emerged from behind the crowd. Muffled by the loud music and the excited crowd, the initial cracks of gunfire either went unnoticed or were misinterpreted.

“The atmosphere was so happy and everyone was dancing and smiling,” Bowdery writes, “and then when the men came through the front entrance and began the shooting, we [naively] believed it was all part of the show.”

Bowdery describes holding her breath, trying to remain motionless and avoid crying so that she didn’t give “those men the fear they longed to see.” She describes the gunmen circling the crowd “like vultures,” an image that will haunt her the rest of her life, she writes.

“The way they [meticulously] aimed at shot people around the standing area i was in the centre of without any consideration for human life,” she writes. “It didn’t feel real. i expected any moment for someone to say it was just a nightmare.”