In the chaos of the explosion at the Comptoir Voltaire cafe, one of several targets hit in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, nurse David instinctively sought to help the wounded.
Among them was a man lying amid overturned chairs and tables. David, who asked to be called just by his first name, lay him down. The man did not look to have massive injuries, but appeared unconscious, so David began CPR, the cardiopulmonary resuscitation he’d been trained for.
When he tore open the man’s t-shirt, David quickly realised that what he initially thought was a gas explosion at the cafe close to the Bataclan music hall where gunmen killed 89, was actually something far worse.
“There were wires; one white, one black, one red and one orange. Four different colours,” he told Reuters. “I knew then he was a suicide bomber.”
The man David was trying to resuscitate was Brahim Abdeslam, one of those involved in a series of deadly attacks that killed 130 people at bars, restaurants, a football stadium and a music hall. No one other than Abdeslam died at the cafe.
In an amateur video obtained by Reuters, two men can be seen from outside the cafe trying to resuscitate a man lying on the floor. One is believed to be David, the other is unknown.
Near them, another person lies wounded on the floor amid spatters of blood. “The first wire I saw was red. I think that was the detonator,” David said. “There was something at the end.”
As soon as he realised the person he was trying to save had just tried to kill him, David says the fire services arrived. Among them was a fireman he knew. He told him what he had just seen. “He looked at me and started shouting for everyone to evacuate,” he said.