MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. (WKRG) — As our community and neighbors continue to heal from the New Year’s Day terror attack in New Orleans, News 5 is hearing more accounts of that morning.
23-year-old Jaries Brown is from Mobile and an alumnus of Mary G. Montgomery. He was visiting the Big Easy with friends to ring in the new year.
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“We [were] just down Bourbon Street,” Brown recalled. “We had a couple of drinks. We [were] talking and taking pictures, met up with a couple of friends that we’d seen from the city.”
He said it didn’t take long for the early morning celebration on Bourbon Street to become a terrifying scene.
“I started seeing poles coming down, started seeing people running,” Brown said. “Then I just [saw] a white truck and it was kind of like, tinted out and kind of dark, and it was just like running through people.”
The driver of the white pickup killed at least 14 people and injured dozens more. After avoiding being run over himself, Brown recalled helping one friend, Alexis Scott-Windham, after she’d been shot by the attacker.
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“I looked on the ground. I [saw] Alexis. She was like crying,” Brown said. “I picked her up, started running with her and as I was running with her, I ended up falling and once I fell, that’s when I started hearing the gunshots.”
After taking cover, Brown said he ended up reuniting with friends and describes a panicked effort to find a missing comrade.
“We went to calling and calling his phone, blowing up his phone. He never answered,” Brown remembered. “He finally ended up calling us, telling us that he was at the hospital.”
That friend is Vigor alumnus Brandon Whitsett. Brown said Whitsett was shot in the back and remains in the hospital. While Brown avoided injury himself, the attack continues to take its toll.
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“I just keep replaying when he was coming down, like hitting people and stuff like that, just keep replaying in my head, like, I keep seeing it,” Brown said.
Now, he’s looking for ways to move forward.
“I just thank God that I made it,” Brown said. “That is all I could think of. I just look up and just tell God, ‘Thank you for letting me make it out of that situation.’”
Brown said four of his friends were injured during the attack. News 5 is still reaching out to learn more about their condition.
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