Kelowna woman recounts terror attacks in Paris

KELOWNA — Global Okanagan reached out to a Kelowna woman who is in Paris on business.

Cherie Hanson is staying in an apartment two buildings down from the concert hall and across the street from the cafe where much of the violence occurred.

She says she was sitting in her apartment with a window open when she suddenly heard explosions and a steady stream of automatic gun fire.

“People were screaming,” says Hanson, “there was particularly a woman who was screaming really loud and people were yelling run, run!”

The people Hanson is staying with went onto the street two separate times to retrieve two wounded people. One man escaped from the concert hall with a gunshot to his thigh. The other was a journalist for “La Presse” who had a gunshot wound to his left arm.

“He was filing his story, sitting in the living room, bleeding, with his arm raised and his other arm with his phone filing his story,” Hanson recounts.

Three armed men came to the house and searched it. Hanson says the home is now on lockdown.