By Dana Ford, CNN
Elaine Dang pretended to be dead, and maybe because she did, she is alive to tell her story.
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Elaine Dang of San Diego is helped to safety after the attack. The military asked local media not to televise anything live because the gunmen are watching the screens in the mall. |
She survived last month’s terror attack at Nairobi’s Westgate mall. At least 67 people were killed during the four-day siege.
Amid the chaos, Dang, 26, an American expat, said she managed to keep her wits.
“In my head I was thinking, like there needs to be an answer to this. So for me, it was like, this is not it. I need to keep on thinking and find a way out,” she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper during an interview that aired Wednesday night.
“I said, this cannot be it.”
Dang was at a children’s cooking competition when militants stormed the mall on September 21. She heard screaming and what sounded like distant booms.
One of the presenters from the competition told everyone to run to the parking lot. At first, Dang followed, but then she stopped.
“My instinct said, don’t go with the crowd, move away from the crowd because the crowd is going to be the most vulnerable place. And so I actually moved away and hid behind one of the silver kitchen counters,” she said.
Dang fell on top of a woman and then people fell on top of her. The shooting continued.
At one point, the woman screamed, “I’ve been shot!” and blood flowed onto the floor.
At another point, Dang saw a friend stand up and raise his arms, as if to surrender. She readied herself to do the same.
But before Dang could stand up, another woman did. That woman was shot.
Read the
full story by Dana Ford from CNN.