Fourteen years ago, an American man only identified as Matthew narrowly escaped a terror attack. He was at the foot of the twin towers in Manhattan on Sept. 11 when the second plane hit the South Tower.
“I crossed almost half of Manhattan running,” said Matthew.
“But what I experienced at the Bataclan was a thousand times worse.“
Earlier this month, he survived another terror attack. This time, in Paris.
French journalist Daniel Psenny’s footage of concertgoers trying to escape the shooting inside the Bataclan on Nov. 13 has been seen around the world.
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His apartment overlooks the theatre.
Psenny is a journalist for French newspaper Le Monde. In an article published last Thursday, he described wondering if the noise was due to a bar fight at the Bataclan when looking out of his window.
When he saw hordes of people attempting to flee, some collapsing and pools of blood forming, he began to film – a professional reflex that Dutch journalist Suzan Yucel spoke of as she recounted her experience in Paris the same night.
After speaking to a fellow reporter and learning about the attacks unfolding in the city, Psenny says he went downstairs to open the doors to his building for anyone seeking a safe place.
He saw a man lying face down on the street, and a man dressed in black (whom he says he never saw again) dragging him.
The wounded man was 36-year-old Matthew.
Psenny helped the man in black drag Matthew into his building.
“I said – or thought in my head, I do not know – ‘I love you, my angel,’” said Matthew.
As they were shutting the door, Psenny says he was shot in the arm. Both wounded and under lockdown, they waited for hours in the journalist’s apartment until authorities told them it was safe to leave.
The two men reunited in a hospital days later after both were treated for their injuries.
“I told him again that he was my angel,” said Matthew.
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