ISTANBUL // Survivors of the attack at the Reina nightclub where 39 people were killed during New Year celebrations described the chaos and panic as people tried to escape the gunman.
Professional footballer Sefa Boydas said several people fainted after they heard gunshots while some walked over others to escape the Reina club on the European side of the city.
Mr Boydas said he had been in the club with two friends for about 10 minutes before he heard gunshots and a friend collapsed in shock.
“Just as we were settling down, by the door there was a lot of dust and smoke. Gunshots rang out. When those sounds were heard, many girls fainted.”
He said that people appeared to be crushed as they ran from the attacker.
“They say 35 to 40 died but it’s probably more because when I was walking, people were walking on top of people,” said Boydas, who plays for Istanbul club Beylerbeyi SK.
He tried to escape holding his friend but on seeing her older sister faint, the footballer said his friend also passed out.
He described the screams which he said drowned out anything said by the attacker.
“But even if there were shouting, you wouldn’t hear because the crowd’s screams were 100 times louder,” he said.
He said police officers arrived quickly but kept many people at the club for a long time as they investigated the attack.
Sinem Uyanik was at the club with her husband, who was wounded in the shooting.
“Before I could understand what was happening, my husband fell on top me,” she said outside Istanbul’s Sisli Etfal Hospital. “I had to lift several bodies from on top of me before I could get out. It was frightening.”
Her husband was not in serious condition despite sustaining three wounds.
Mehmet Dag, 22, was passing by the club and saw the attacker shoot at a police officer and a bystander. He said the gunman then targeted security, shooting them before entering the club.
“Once he went in, we don’t know what happened. There were gun sounds, and after two minutes the sound of an explosion.”
Footage filmed by Dag on his phone showed a police officer lying on the ground outside the club, and then a woman. Dag told the woman, who was lying on the floor face down in a pool of blood, “My sister, you will get better.” He then called for an ambulance.
Footage from his phone showed ambulances and the lights of an Istanbul bridge when the sound of gunfire rang out inside the club.
Boydas said he had been apprehensive about going out on New Year’s Eve for the first time in his life after a string of attacks in Turkey last year.
But while making plans with friends, his fears were dismissed.
“I was hesitant that there could be a fight, something might happen, a bomb. A friend said: ‘It wouldn’t ever happen in a place like Reina’.
“I said actually the target is places like that. I felt something,” he said.
“I went after the New Year began and it happened 10 minutes after I entered.”
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press