It was a scene straight out of a horror movie.

New Year’s revelers in New Orleans were left in shock and horror when a truck plowed into the crowd on Bourbon Street, leaving mangled and gruesomely mutilated bodies strewn across the sidewalk. Eyewitness accounts describe a nightmare that unfolded in the blink of an eye, as a terrorist attack turned a bustling street into a scene of chaos, destruction and unimaginable loss.
Mother’s lifeless body
Jimmy Cothran, who was among those taking refuge in a nightclub, described the shocking results. “Somebody’s mother was dead in front of us, twisted, obviously dead,” he told NBC News. He continued, his voice shaking, “One person, the deceased, had tire tracks on his back and when someone turned him over, he had tire tracks on his stomach and he was obviously crushed. “

The heartbreaking end of a little girl
But the most heart-wrenching moment came when Cothran described the lifeless body of a little girl, “a little girl we saw dancing down the street.” “She was as flat as a pillow,” he said, his words trailing off as he remembered the horror that had unfolded before his eyes. “It just kept going. Every eyeball — body, body, body, body. It was unbelievable,” the Post reported.

Watching the chaos from above
Another eyewitness, who identified himself only as Paul S., gave a fascinating account of the scene. He was in his hotel room when he first heard the gunshots, followed by a deafening roar that sounded like fireworks. He soon stepped onto the balcony, where the view of Bourbon Street was terrifying. “We heard a ‘pop, pop, pop, pop,’ followed by what sounded like fireworks, like a big firework going off all at once,” he told the ABC. , and it turns out it was an accident.

A scene straight out of a horror movie
When he looked down Bourbon Street, what he saw was a scene straight out of a horror movie. “There’s trash all over the sidewalks, and then there’s bodies next to the trash cans and people running for help,” Paul S. recalled. The street, once packed with partygoers, was now eerily silent except for people making frantic efforts, recalled Paul S. To help victims.

Squealing tires and life-shaking reality
For 18-year-old Parsons, who was celebrating with friends, the terror started with screeching tires. “A real-life horror movie,” he said, describing the scene as the truck plowed through the crowd. “Everything that the car hits, it’s being thrown. It’s being thrown into the air and away and under the car.” He and his friends ducked for cover in the space between the two bars, but when he emerged, the scene was gut-wrenching.
A friend was left behind.
“A friend of mine, a woman, was lying in the street, badly injured but alive,” said Parsons, shaking. “But below, there were bodies scattered all over the street.” The chaos shook emergency crews, and Parsons, not knowing what had happened to his injured friend, feared the most “I don’t know where they took him. I don’t know his condition.” ” He said helplessly unable to move the picture of her lying there.
Missing barriers contribute to carnage.
Authorities reported that the suspect drove the truck through a busy intersection at the south end of Bourbon Street, an area filled with nightclubs and fairs. The attack was particularly devastating because the steel barriers, normally meant to prevent such incidents, had been removed a few weeks earlier for the upcoming Super Bowl. The city was in the process of replacing him, but his absence proved disastrous.
Security concerns and inadequate barriers
Bob Sims, who previously oversaw French Quarter security, said the old barriers wouldn’t have been enough to stop the truck even if they were in place. “They were very ineffective. The track was always full of crap; pearls and dowels and God knows what else,” he said. “Not the best idea.”
New Orleans faces the latter.
As New Orleans crumbles in the wake of the brutal attack, the scale of the tragedy becomes clearer with each passing hour. Families are devastated, survivors are traumatized, and the city must now pick up the pieces of what should have been a night of celebration turned into a nightmare.