MAGEE professor Paddy Gray says his late mum must have been “looking down on me” on Friday night as he unwittingly got caught up in the Paris massacre.
Mr Gray retraced his steps on the night of the slaughter of innocents in Paris for BBC Five Live where he had first appeared on Friday night.
And after a walk through of the scene, Paddy declared: “I am lucky to be alive. I just didn’t realise I was so close to the shootings.”
On Saturday evening, he went back to the scene with a Five Live reporter to walk through the terrible events of Friday the 13th.
Like so many people, Paddy was enjoying a meal out in a restaurant and was hoping to catch a glimpse of the Boxnia v Republic of Ireland Euro 2016 qualifier game afterwards.
And retracing his steps on that fateful night left the Magee professor visibly shaking knowing how close he come to being of the Jihadi militant victims.
A total of 129 people died in Friday night’s massacre which has left 350 people in hospital, some 90 or so in a critical condition and fighting for their lives.
Paddy recalled: “We are now at scene from last night. I remember there was pandemonium. A lot of people were panicking.
“We all ran down this street and hid in an entry.
“There were shootings at two restaurants up by the lights over to the right.
“We had been in a restaurant just beside those and we walked down to an Irish bar to watch a bit of the football match.
“When we came out everything was cordoned off and I thought something must have happened.
“I had heard something…I thought it was like firecrackers but it was obviously shooting. People just didn’t know what was going on.
“I didn’t realise at the time it was shooting. People were texting me saying there had been a shooting in Paris but didn’t say where.
“I didn’t realise it was Place de la Republique where we were.
“There was just confusion. We realised something had happened as there was lines and lines of police cars coming past the Irish bar when we were sitting there. That’s why I left it and didn’t get to watch the rest of the match.
“And then we came up, saw the cordon and lots and lots of people standing around.
“There were seven of us and we came and hid in this entry. It was in total darkness last night.
“There was people running about, soldiers and police and blue lights. It was frightening. They were all French people. They were very nice. My French isn’t bad but I just couldn’t pick up what was going on.
“I don’t know how we got into the entry. The door was open, somebody must have opened the door and let us in.
“After about half an hour when we were sitting there the gentleman who actually lives in this house here came out and brought us into his house.
“So we then took refuge there for about three hours.
“The gentleman who lives here was absolutely superb. We couldn’t see what was going on through the windows downstairs. All we could see were the blue lights.
“We knew there was pandemonium going on outside.’’
Seeing it all in the cold light of day almost 24 hours after the massacre, Paddy said: “It is absolutely unbelievable. It is terrible.
“Last night I didn’t realise the extent of what was going on.
“When I spoke to Five Live on Friday night I was in a state of shock
“Today when I came round and retraced my steps and saw just how close I was to everything and what had actually happened and the scale of what happened I have just been shaking ever since.
“I have had more of a shock today than I had last night in the cold light of day seeing what happened.
“You can see everyone is walking round in a state of shock in this part of Paris.
“I feel very very lucky indeed.
“My mother died a couple of weeks ago and maybe she was looking down on me or something.
“I really cannot believe just how lucky I was. I just didn’t understand just how close I was to it last night.’’
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