New Orleans terror survivor recalls ‘surreal’ aftermath of deadly attack that broke his leg

NEW ORLEANS – Jeremi Sensky was returning to his hotel after meeting friends in the early hours of New Year’s Day when he heard a “massive noise” – the last thing he remembers before ending up face down on the ground in his wheelchair smashed around him.

Sensky survived Wednesday morning’s fatal terrorist attack on Bourbon Street, in which a Texas man inspired by ISIS rammed a truck into a crowd of revelers in New Orleans’ French Quarter. He spoke to NBC News from his hospital room, where he is recovering from two broken legs.

“I’m assuming I was hit by the truck, but honestly, nobody ever told me, so I don’t know,” Sensky said. “But my wheelchair was completely battered and the pieces were all over the place, so something hit me.”

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According to the FBI, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, made his way to Louisiana from his home in Texas on New Year’s Eve and posted several videos to social media. Jabbar said in the videos that he originally planned to hurt his family and friends, but switched to a larger attack to focus on “the war between the believers and the unbelievers.”

He drove a rented Ford F-150 onto the sidewalk into a crowd — swinging through barriers and police — before dying in a gun battle with officers. The attack killed 14 people and injured dozens of others.

Sensky was right by Jabbaren’s truck after he plowed into the crowd.

Everything happened so fast, he said. One moment he turned around and the next he was lying on the ground amid the sound of gunfire coming from different directions.

“I just heard screams and I heard gunshots,” he recalled.

He couldn’t find his phone, so Sensky started screaming for help.

“No one would come and then I pushed myself on the back and I saw people and they were taking pictures from the balcony and I was screaming for help and people were just looking at me,” Sensky said.

An officer named Patrick eventually approached him and explained that many people had died, Sensky recalled. The officer told Sensky he was “lucky to be alive.”

“I kept asking for someone to help me and get me out of there, and it took a while,” Sensky said. “I realized it was a bad scene.”

Sensky, who was paralyzed from the waist down before the attack, doesn’t think anyone realized he couldn’t walk when they took in the chaos on stage. He was eventually carried to an ambulance and taken to the hospital where he underwent surgery.

His right leg was broken into a “million pieces,” but Sensky also said that saved him.

Sensky told NBC News the whole experience has been “surreal.” He cried as he spoke about the attack, emotional in his disbelief that someone could do such a thing.

“I love everybody. Everybody,” Sensky said. “I can’t believe that would happen.”

Tom Llamas reported from New Orleans. Doha Madani reported from New York City.