A SURVIVOR of the Bataclan theatre massacre has told how he rescued a
pregnant woman seen dangling from a window 45ft up.
Mobile phone video from across the street showed the expectant
mum hanging from a ledge by her fingertips and pleading: “Help, help, I’m
pregnant”.
Last night another concert-goer called Sebastian claimed he was the one who
pulled her back inside after dashing out from his hiding place amid the
carnage.
He told a newspaper how he climbed through a window and clung to an air vent.
He said: “She was begging people down below if they would catch her if she
jumped. But it was chaos down there. We were 15 metres above the ground.
“I held on for five minutes and then the pregnant woman, who was exhausted,
begged me to help her get back inside. That’s what I did.
“I don’t know where she went afterwards but I went back to my old hiding place
which wasn’t great.
“Five minutes later I felt the barrel of a Kalashnikov against my leg and a
terrorist yelling: ‘Get down from there. Lie on the ground’.”
Sebastian tried to flee when gunfire erupted during a rock concert but later
found himself lying face down with other hostages and waiting for death.
He also revealed the terrorists negotiated with police, allowed some of the
wounded to escape and ordered hostages to phone a TV station during the
three-hour siege.
He said of the moment the shooting began: “The lights came on and I turned to
the entrance and saw two or three guys armed with Kalashnikovs. They were
shooting at anyone they met. Those in the bar went down first. Everyone fell
to the ground. I saw a guy next to me take a bullet in the head.
“Word spread that there was an exit behind the stage. I crawled closer to it.
I had to crawl over dead bodies, wounded people, my clothes were full of
blood.
“I took advantage of one guy reloading to escape behind the stage. On the left
there was no emergency exit so I crossed and hid behind a black curtain and
got to the other side. There was no exit there either.
“I climbed the stairs but they led on to the balcony of the concert hall.
That’s when I went to the windows and saw her.”
After helping the pregnant woman he was spotted by the gunmen and ordered to
lie face down with around fifteen others.
He said he could hear the killers shooting from the balcony and heard people
screaming as if being tortured.
Sebastian told Le Province: “They told us, ‘We’re here to make you go through
what the innocent are suffering in Syria. You hear the cries of suffering?’
“‘Now you feel the fear that people go through every day in Syria. It’s war.
And that’s just the beginning. We will massacre the innocent. We want you to
tell everybody’.”
Sebastian closed his eyes expecting to be killed but then the terrorists asked
him and others to call BFM-TV.
He said: “They wanted to talk to reporters. They asked, for some reason, if
money was important to me and took out a wad of €50 notes and made me burn
them.
“They spoke French to one another. One was Algerian-looking with blue eyes.
“Then they wanted to talk to the police. They put us against the windows and I
had to shout to them to stay away.
“They said they had explosive belts and if the police approached they would
blow us all up. They didn’t seem organised and spoke to a negotiator via a
hostage’s notebook. The only claim they made was the withdrawal of forces.
“Then they threatened to kill one of us every five minutes and throw a body
out of the window. I think they negotiator managed to organise that we would
come out and then we waited.
“Those minutes were the longest of my life. I went through all the emotions
including hope and finally the acceptance of death even if I closed my eyes
against it and the Kalashnikov pointed in my direction.
“The terrorists had placed two human shields on doors but the security
services managed to burst in without touching them.
“They used a battering ram and threw a stun grenade. When I saw a second one
fall at my feet I told myself it was time to flee.
“I ran. The grenade exploded and threw me under the ram as the forces came
through. I was trampled on but it was the happiest day of my life. I was
saved.”