Bataclan survivor: dozens of people were shot in front of me

Picture shows the bloodstained top Isobel Bowdery was wearing at the time of the attack

“You never think it will happen to you”, begins Isobel Bowdery.

The 22-year-old described how she had been enjoying a Friday night rock concert by Californian band Eagles of Death Metal when the attack started: “the atmosphere was so happy and everyone was dancing and smiling”.

I was incredibly lucky to survive Isobel Bowdery

At first the crowd thought the noise of gunshots was “all part of the show”, but soon the terrible truth became clear.

Pools of blood

“It wasn’t just a terrorist attack, it was a massacre. Dozens of people were shot right in front of me.

“Pools of blood filled the floor. Cries of grown men who held their girlfriends’ dead bodies pierced the small music venue.

“Futures demolished, families heartbroken, in an instant.”

“I was incredibly lucky to survive. But so many didn’t. The people who had been there for the exact same reason as me – to have a fun Friday night – were innocent.”

Playing dead

Isobel described how, surrounded by bodies, she played dead for over an hour: “holding my breath, trying not to move, not to cry – not giving [the terrorists] the fear they longed to see.”

“As I lay down in the blood of strangers and waiting for a bullet to end my mere 22 years, I envisioned every face that I have ever loved and whispered I love you, over and over again, reflecting on the highlights of my life… Wishing that they knew, no matter what happened to me, to keep believing in the good in people. To not let those men win.”

She added “the images of those men circling us like vultures will haunt me for the rest of my life. The way they meticulously aimed at, shot people around the standing area I was in the centre of without any consideration for human life.

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“It didn’t feel real. I expected any moment for someone to say it was just a nightmare.”

Heroes

She thanks the man who “reassured me and put his life on the line to try and cover my brain while I whimpered,” and the “couple whose last words of love kept me believing the good in the world” and “the police who succeeded in rescuing hundreds of people.”

But she dedicates her words “most of all” to the “80 people who were murdered inside that venue, who weren’t as lucky, who didn’t get to wake up today and to all the pain that their friends and families are going through, adding “I am so sorry.”

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She ends with a message: “it up to us to be better people, to live the lives that the innocent victims of this tragedy dreamt about but sadly will now never be able to fulfil.

RIP angels. You will never be forgotten.”

An image from Isobel Bowdery’s Facebook page