He was in the area with friends…
The horrible events in Nice last night have shocked the world with the death toll rising to 84 with hundreds of others injured.
An Irishman witnessed the shocking incident along the promenade and went on Today with Sean O’Rourke to tell his story of the horrific Bastille Day attack.
Identified only as Rob, he was very close to the start of the horrible scene and he and his friends were lucky to escape injury.
“We heard this noise [on the promenade] and kind of turned around and saw a ruck ploughing through people pretty much,” Rob said.
“Leaving 5 or 6 in his wake and then he started to veer left and right as we ran off.
Rob and his friends got to the side of the promenade and managed to avoid the oncoming truck but many others were not so lucky.
“Next thing you know he was gone past us,” Rob continued, “just doing the same thing, waving in and out through the crowd the whole time.
“After that there was just people running everywhere, people screaming, people trying to find their loved ones and it was just kind of surreal with everyone looking at each other.
“We made our way down to the beach just in case there was anything more that had come through, just to get out of the path of destruction.
“We were walking our way up the beach back towards where we all live. About 100 or 200 metres down the beach a French girl was walking the opposite way and immediately asked us why are we moving up that way, there’s gunshots being fired.
“That was the first we’d heard of it, we hadn’t heard any shots, it was just the truck itself that we saw.”
Rob and his friends took shelter in a restaurant near the the prom but there was a lot of confusion about what had actually happened, with Rob calling the whole situation surreal.
Speaking on Today with Sean O’Rourke, he was asked what speed the truck was doing when it passed him.
“Pretty fast, he’d already gotten up some speed,” Rob said, “I think we were pretty close to the start of it because we didn’t hear any people screaming beforehand.
“We kind of just heard this noise, just something hitting something. We saw him mow down two or three people and then he started to swerve and pick up a bit of speed, it was carnage.
“A young kids tricycle, a little plastic tricycle was smashed up and there was little bits left all over the promenade.
“My first thought watching this was why isn’t he slowing down, then I saw him hit three or four people and he started to veer in and out so he was trying to hit people.
“That’s when I knew, this guy is out to hurt, it’s not an accident, he’s not just going to stop.”
You can listen to the whole segment below.
Main image via YouTube
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