A brave British lad lay on top of his girlfriend to shield her from Isis gunmen as they stormed the Bataclan concert hall- saving her life.
Michael O’ Connor, from South Shields, South Tyneside thought he was ‘going to die’ amid the horrific shooting at the Eagles of Death Metal gig, in which at least 80 people lost their lives.
He recounted the brutal events that unfolded at the music venue of how he watched two Isis agents enter the venue.
They ordered everyone to lie down before shooting at random defenceless victims with their automatic weapons, once they emptied their magazines they re-loaded and fired again.
The 30-year-old told his French girlfriend Sara Badel Craeye ‘I love you’ as he believed he would die, but his girlfriend told him in response, ‘we will not die in here.
Talking to the BBC, Michael spoke of his sheer horror as the terrorists arrived at the venue.
He said:
There were two young people who came from the back of the arena. They started to open fire with what looked like AK 47s. I grabbed my girlfriend and pulled her down to protect her. We tried to make the exit, but there was a crush and you could not get out.
This is when the attackers opened fire indiscriminately on the crowds, with Michael explaining that people tried making a dash for the exit before they finished reloading and started firing again.
He continued:
There were people climbing all over me and I thought that if they fired again we would get hit so I pulled my girlfriend under me and lay on top of her. Many people were wounded all around us, but there were also people who were obviously dead. I thought I was going to die, I could not see out properly but they were firing from the balcony above us so I guess I thought ‘they are going to shoot us’ so I told my girlfriend I loved her. What else can you do in that situation? I expected to die, and I waited.”
He described the scene as a ‘slaughterhouse’ as the gunmen continued to fire. Many tried to stay silent, even if they were seriously injured and played dead to avoid being targeted.
The couple had been laying there for an hour and 15 minutes until the police stormed the building. They killed the assailants and Michael spoke of his sheer joy the moment the police arrived.
It was such a relief. I have never felt so happy in my entire life. I was ecstatic to see the police. They could have still killed us even then. My main worry then was if they set off a bomb. It looked like an abattoir…the blood was a centimetre deep in places I was wading through blood and climbing over dead bodies to get out. It was just carnage everywhere. My girlfriend was with me I made sure we stayed together we ran out as quickly as we could. When I got outside it really hit me what I had seen and experienced, walking past the people who didn’t make it, it just brought it all home.
Despite his ordeal, the Brit had a stern word of warning for the terrorists.
The people who attacked us were not Muslims, they were not even human beings. Don’t let this tragedy divide us, that’s exactly what these animals want.
