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Medicine Hat Couple Half a Block From Disaster in Nice, France

Jul 15, 2016 | 2:51 PM

MEDICINE HAT: For two Medicine Hat residents the horror of Thursday’s attack in Nice, France was something experienced firsthand. Medicine Hat College Economics Instructor Glen Allan and his girlfriend Donna Wood are in the city, and were right by where everything unfolded.

Allan says they were on the beach watching the fireworks right below where the truck finally came to a stop. He says roughly three minutes before the attack, he and Wood left the beach to make their way back to the their hotel, and that’s when panic broke out.

“We were just walking along the promenade there and all of a sudden people were running, and screaming, and crying. It was just pandemonium,” said Allan over the phone this morning from the French city. “We were passing by restaurants and all the tables were tipped over, and food was left and all the glasses were broken. We were running with one mother who had lost her kid, so she was freaking out twice as much. All we were trying to do was get back to our hotel and get back into our room.”

Allan says it wasn’t until they were in their room that they fully realized what had happened. He says both him and Wood were obviously rattled, and that there were so many little decisions they made that had they done things differently, the outcome for them could have been much worse.

“We were half a block from disaster,” said Allan. “As soon as the fireworks ended we made our way off the beach, and lots of people kind of loitered on the beach and just waited for the crowd to disperse. If we made that decision, who knows?”

Reflecting Friday, Allan and Wood also wonder about the route they took back to their hotel. “Our hotel is only about a block away from where that truck stopped. There’s two streets we could have chosen, if we had chose the other street it would have not been good.”

Allan says there were lots of families with children in the area, and that there’s one image that will perhaps stick with him for the rest of his life. “We ran past a restaurant and there were empty baby carriages, because obviously the people just grabbed their kids and ran.”

The pair fly out of Nice Saturday to continue on with the next leg their European vacation, and Allan says the mood in the city today was one of overall sadness. Him and Wood also visited a memorial that has since been set up.

“It’s very sad. It just brings back that pure, like, panic-fear. It’s a very weird feeling, and I hope I never experience it again.