Thomas Tran Dinh, who works for IBM France, was attending the Eagles of Death Metal concert at a packed Paris nightclub Friday when gunmen stormed in. The attack at Le Bataclan was part of a coordinated terror assault across the city that left 127 dead and 200 others wounded. Dinh was able to escape unscathed. This is his personal account.
The sun is rising. I cheated death, that was so close. Another day starts. I love you all.
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I've been saved by a song, my favorite song of the new Eagles Of Death Metal album "Oh Girl." When I heard the song I went front row. When they started to shoot we all lied on the ground. The guy next to me got shot in the leg and we laughed: "Damn i'm gonna miss Sunday's Foo Fighters concert."
I was there for 15 minutes, a hundred rounds were shot. I waited for a window to run away. Someone then said, they're going upstairs. I knew I was dead, with my tall body coming out from everywhere and with them shooting from above, I decided to run away. The path was full of bodies drenched in blood. The people who tried to escape earlier.
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Fortunately they all took the stairs at once so no one was watching and no one shot me. One minute before or after they would have shot me. And then I ran fast and far away. In the few hours after I finally learnt that all my friends that I convinced to come with me to that concert were safe... although one received a bullet in the eye. Please pray for him and everyone else. I've learnt the Foo Fighters guy was safe too.
If I hadn't been on the front row, I never could have made it out through the emergency exit. The chorus of Oh Girl is "You've got to save me." And Jesse Hughes became a priest. Thank God. In all this mess someone was looking for me.
Sun is rising, a new day begins. May it be with love. Please not with hate. I love you all, let's love each other. Maybe the world will be a better place.
This account was originally posted on LinkedIn.
