Paris Nurse Found Man He Was Trying To Save Was Suicide Bomber
Many personal stories are coming to light since the deadly terror attacks on Paris just over a week ago. One such story is of a Paris nurse who went to the aid of an injured man in the Comptoir Voltaire café, only to find out he was the suicide bomber that caused the explosion.
The Paris nurse, who asked to be identified only by his first name, David, was enjoying dinner with a friend that Friday night. Just as the waitress was serving them their meal, the explosion happened. He initially thought the explosion in the café was caused by a gas leak and yelled “Turn off the gas!”
As reported by Time, David, 46, said there was a huge flame and there was dust everywhere, and he immediately thought it was caused by the gas heaters. Everyone around him was panicking with many people running out of the Comptoir Voltaire café.
Being an off-duty nurse, David then immediately and instinctively started to help the wounded. When the Paris nurse left the dining area and went out onto the terrace, he first helped an injured woman and then spotted a man, lying on the floor.
Paris Nurse Discovers Man He Tried to Save Was Bomber https://t.co/mCehSRutEE
— Sara Johnson (@sarajohnson983) November 21, 2015
David headed to the unconscious man, lying among the overturned tables and chairs, who at first sight did not appear to have any massive injuries. The Paris nurse immediately began to give the man CPR.
While at first he thought the man had no massive injuries, when he tore open the man’s t-shirt to aid in the CPR, David found a huge hole in the man’s side, but he also found something far more ominous. He told Reuters, “There were wires; one white, one black, one red and one orange. Four different colors. I knew then he was a suicide bomber.”
It turned out that the man David was trying to save was Brahim Abdeslam, one of the terrorists involved in a series of attacks that Friday night in Paris which killed at least 130 people in restaurants, bars, a soccer stadium where France was playing Germany and, of course, the Bataclan concert hall where the band Eagles of Death Metal were playing.
Abdeslam was the only person killed in the café attack.The explosion in the café, which is located close to the Bataclan concert hall in Paris where 89 people were killed, had fortunately only killed one person, the bomber himself.
Reuters obtained an amateur video showing two men trying to resuscitate an injured man, lying on the floor. One of these men is believed to be David, the Paris nurse, while the other person is unknown. Close by, another person lay wounded on the floor, surrounded by blood spatters.
David continued by saying the first wire he saw was red. “I think that was the detonator,” adding, “There was something at the end.”
What might have been a hard decision — to attempt to save a person who caused so much chaos and injury — was avoided, as emergency services then arrived on the scene. David saw a fireman that he knew personally and told him what he had just spotted on the injured man. The Paris nurse said, “He looked at me and started shouting for everyone to evacuate.”
France: Forensic experts inspect suicide bomber’s body outside cafe ‘Comptoir Voltaire’ https://t.co/zOCj07lXkl pic.twitter.com/Jp9CNk4ml1
— Tubeline News (@aenewsline) November 14, 2015
According to David, he didn’t see Abdeslam walk into the restaurant, but believes he was sitting on the terrace when he detonated the bomb. According to Paris police, the bomb had not fully exploded.
David said he realized later how much danger he was actually in at the time, saying, “I was thinking about how I lay him on the floor, with me doing CPR. It’s a pretty vigorous process. By just doing that, I also could have been gone.”
The interview with David, the Paris nurse in question, can be seen below with English sub-titles.
[Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images]
