American Tourist's First-Hand Account of Deadly Attack in Barcelona: ‘I Can’t Unsee' the Screams and Terror
During Thursday’s deadly van attack in Barcelona, Spain, American tourist Jordan Fisher says she safely took refuge inside a tiny ice cream shop — but she’ll never be able to forget “the screams, the terrified faces” from just outside the door.
“I can’t unsee it, it just keeps replaying over and over in my head,” Fisher, of San Francisco, tells PEOPLE.
She adds, “My heart is in pieces.”
Fisher and her girlfriend Maria Corona, 34 — who are traveling around Europe for three weeks on vacation — were sitting down to eat at a seafood restaurant on the edge of the Las Ramblas boulevard when a van barreled into the crowds gathered at the popular destination, killing 13 and injuring scores more.
“I was looking at the menu to order and I looked up and saw two cops run down an alley,” Fisher recalls. “I thought nothing of it until I looked up again and there were hundreds of people flooding the tiny area we were in.”
She continues, “They were all running towards us.”
Panicked, Fisher says she and Corona joined the hoards of people fleeing, but “everyone was trampling over everybody.” She explains, “Food, drinks, bags, people were flying everywhere. Everyone screaming in different languages. We had no idea what was going on.”
Eventually, Fisher — a nanny, artist and hairstylist — and Corona came across a shop with the door barricaded and “screamed for them to please let us in.”
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Inside the ice cream store, called Sweet Gaufre, were around 40 people, Fisher says.
“Everyone was horrified, crying, screaming,” she says, adding, “People lost their children and significant others in the crowds.”
The group remained in the locked store for more than seven hours under advisory from authorities, Fisher says, noting that she and Corona were the only native English speakers among the group.
The view from the building was horrifying, she says: “We could count eight bodies.”
A post shared by Jordan Alexis (@jordanalexishairsf) on Aug 17, 2017 at 5:05pm PDT
“In the evening they evacuated every building separately,” Fisher says. “They checked everyone’s bags and searched us before they let us leave.”
After checking in with a police officer to provide information, Fisher says she and Corona walked the 15 minutes back to their hotel just after midnight.
“The whole city was silent and empty. There were no taxis or anything,” she says, “… Every few steps we walked we would see another body.”
Though Fisher and Corona escaped the ordeal, the former tells PEOPLE, “[We] are both physically okay. Emotionally, no.”
A second van attack hours after the Barcelona rampage, in the coastal town of Cambrils, Spain, killed a 14th person. Authorities have reportedly said they believe both incidents were the work of the same terror group.
On Friday, the king of Spain — Felipe VI — led a moment of silence in the city’s famous Catalonia Square surrounded by scores of mourners. The crowd clapped and chanted “I am not afraid,” according to NBC News.
