'Horror scenes like you never see in your life', Woman describes escape from the Bataclan
A French woman says she saw "a corpse-field" when she was rescued with other survivors from the Bataclan theatre.
Marielle Timme was one of about eight people who barricaded themselves in the bathroom of the green room backstage after the gunfire erupted.
She said she considered the best way to die at the hands of the invaders.
"You think how you want to die. If I prefer explosives, a gun shot in my head, be injured and feign death," she said describing the trauma of listening to those killed around her.
An avid rock fan, Marielle was excited to attend the Eagles of Death Metal with her cousin and friends on Friday the 13th.
Quickly, it turned into a scene she never expected to witness.
"We heard fire cracks, like what's happening here? Then I watched on my right and I saw four guys with guns, with automatic guns shooting everybody in the crowd," she said.
"A guy behind me said 'guys I think it's not a joke everybody on the floor,"
"I saw people just lying down on the floor and some people were just shot so they, they just fall down on the floor."
Marielle and her friends ran. Her cousin got separated and escaped out a side door to the theatre and Marie ended up backstage with about 15 others.
"Some other friends and I decided to go to another stair and we arrived in the green room of the band. So the green room is in two parts, the green room and the bathroom."
"We saw a window like, 'ok we can jump through the window' and then we saw bars. It was like a prison."
Trapped in the room, they turned off the lights and waited listening to the gunshots and screams.
When there were knocks on the door, Marielle said, they refused to open it for anyone.
"Some people were knocking on our door, we were crying like no we can't open to you because we don't know if the terrorists are with you," she said.
"It was horrible because we know that we were like monsters… but you just want to save your life."
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They listened to screams and regular gunshots for two hours, and then bombs before the police arrived to escort them out.
"We heard gun shots. I heard screaming. A detonation"
But the trauma was far from over. Police had to escort the hostages through the theatre to the street outside and did their best to distract them from the grisly scene.
"They said, 'so you will go outside, one by one with your hands on your head, but I want to tell you, you will see horror scenes like you never see in your life'."
"Going through the door and I just saw the feet of the terrorists... blood, blood everywhere, everywhere on the floor with footsteps on it and then we go down the stairs."
"I saw a corpse-field."
Marielle said she saw tears and shock in the eyes of police as they were escorted out of the building.
"I think I saw like fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty bodies. I can't count it because it was just a quick look."
"And then we were finally on the street, it was amazing, amazing to be free."
