Tourists in New Orleans for New Year’s Eve recall the moments before a US army veteran steered a pickup truck into a crowd of revellers in the early hours of 2025, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens. "It was just scary, I cried my eyes out honestly," says Ethan Ayersman. With the investigation still ongoing, the FBI has said "an ISIS flag was located in the vehicle," using another name for the Islamic State jihadist group.
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00:00Yeah, so basically, you know, we were out in the field and we were trying to figure
00:29out what to do.
00:30So basically, you know, we were enjoying ourselves last night on Bourbon Street.
00:31You know, we left around like 1.30 a.m., but we have an Airbnb that we were staying at
00:36right here.
00:37And so we kind of just went to bed.
00:40You know, it was kind of a normal night.
00:41Everybody was having a good time.
00:43And then I feel like after that, I went to sleep.
00:45My brother came in to the room at some point.
00:48He woke me up.
00:49He told me he heard gunshots and a car like speeding, but he didn't actually see it, but
00:53he was like something was going on.
00:55I'm just not here on vacation, but it's just really scary and, you know, especially because
01:00over there, you know, we could see from our window because we were staying on the Canal
01:03Street side.
01:04Some of the bodies that were being like lined up on there, they had some tarp over there
01:07and it was just scary and I cried my eyes out, honestly.
01:26Last night, everybody was happy.
01:28The streets were beautiful.
01:30Everybody was having a good time.
01:32So we had thought about coming out after New Year's and this is the area we were going
01:37to come to is Bourbon because it's where all the music is and the fun.
01:42We just decided to stay low-key and stay at our hotel.
01:46So yeah, a block away decision made our, probably saved our life.
01:55I'm good, I'm good.