Jeremi Sensky described his feelings Thursday after barely surviving the terrorist who mowed down people in a pick-up truck in New Orleans early New Year’s Day, killing 14 and injuring 30 others.
“I’m just happy to be alive,” is how Sensky of Canonsburg described his feelings to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday.
The FBI said the truck attacker, an Army veteran from Texas whom authorities identified as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, acted alone in an “act of terrorism” when he drove the pickup into the crowd.
President Joe Biden said the driver posted videos on social media hours before the carnage saying he was inspired by the Islamic State group and expressing a desire to kill.
Sensky’s two legs were crushed in the incident, his daughter, Heaven Sensky Kirsch, told TribLive on Thursday. She said a bone was protruding from one of her father’s legs before the surgery.
Sensky, 51, who has used a wheelchair since being injured in a car accident several years ago, was thrown into the street in New Orleans, Kirsch said.
A police officer marked on Sensky’s forehead that the Pittsburgh-area man was alive, then told him to wait while first responders tended to others, Kirsch said. Sensky told his family he heard multiple gunshots as he lay on the ground.
The alleged attacker was killed Wednesday in a gunfight with police, authorities said.
Sensky and his family had traveled by car to Louisiana after stopping in Nashville around the holidays.
The family began to worry early Wednesday when Sensky didn’t return to his hotel room on Magazine Street, a 6-mile stretch that runs along the Mississippi River and connects Downtown New Orleans to the city’s tree-shaded Garden District.
Kirsch said she later found her father in a local trauma unit. A lengthy surgery followed.
Sensky told Cooper he was disoriented and did not recall being hit by the truck, but was conscious when he fell to the ground. He started searching for his cellphone among the debris from his wheelchair so he could call his wife. The vehicle was stopped just yards from where Sensky was laying on the ground.
“First thing I remember when I hit the ground, I heard the gunshots,” Sensky said. He was hoping he was clear from the gunfire, but he thought he might have been on the ground to avoid the gunfire, which police exchanged with the terrorist, whom police shot.
Sensky also recounted what he recalled for NBC Nightly News.
“When I turned around pretty much all I remembered until I was on the ground and I came back and there was this people screaming, and I was laying on the ground and I saw all my wheelchair parts on the ground beside me,” Sensky said. “Somebody came … a cop, his nickname was Patrick, he came over and he told me that there was a lot of people didn’t make it … and I was lucky to be alive. I kept asking for someone to help me, to get me out of there.”
Sensky told CNN’s Cooper that it will be awhile before he ever goes back to Bourbon Street, but said the experience should not deter people from living their lives.
“I don’t want people to be afraid to come out and do things on their own. This could happen anywhere,” Sensky said.
“My dad is a fighter, and loves to live life,” Kirsch, his daughter, wrote on Facebook. “We are so grateful. So grateful.”
The attack unfolded on Bourbon Street, known worldwide as one of the largest destinations for New Year’s Eve parties.
Large crowds also had gathered in the city ahead of the College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl, which had been scheduled for later Wednesday at the nearby Superdome. The game was postponed following the attack.
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