MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A man’s body was contorted in a way that you wouldn’t think was humanly possible. It was a heap of mangled flesh. On the other side of the street, a man was bleeding from his head as panic ensued all around. Though he was talking, he was laid out flat. A woman lay on the pavement, not moving—either unconscious or dead. Others were motionless and strewn along Bourbon Street. It was a scene of human wreckage.
Pandemonium erupted in New Orleans on New Year’s Day. Revelers moved as quickly as possible to avoid the threat of death, including Jeremy Curtis, who pushed his wife, Brittany, out of harm’s way as a white Ford pickup truck barreled toward them.
“He had to have been going at least 60 mph,” said Curtis, who had arrived in the Crescent City on Dec. 28 with Brittany to enjoy the festivities leading up to the New Year’s celebration. A former Memphian now living on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., with his wife and their four-year-old son Preston, Curtis, 33, and Brittany, 34, were traumatized by the horrific experience and are now trying to cope. Jeremy is a 2009 graduate of Fairley High School in Memphis, while Brittany graduated in 2008 from Whitehaven High School. He works as a healthcare consultant, and she is employed in public health for the government.
Their story echoes that of other survivors struggling to process the carnage they witnessed. In the chaos, when “bodies were flying in the air,” Curtis’s sole focus was saving his wife. “I pushed Brittany out of the street onto the curb,” he said. “Then I stepped onto the curb myself.”
Curtis recalled seeing a young girl get hit and land right in front of him. “She and I locked eyes,” he said. “She looked so scared, and I was in a state of shock.” Closing his eyes to the chaos, Curtis tried to process what was happening. The truck had narrowly missed them, leaving behind a breeze he could almost feel. “When I looked,” he explained, “I saw him crash into this white and orange equipment.”
After a brief silence, chaos resumed. “We just thought it was a drunk driver at that point. We didn’t think it was, as they [FBI] called it, a terrorist attack,” Curtis said. As police rushed to the truck, Curtis heard gunshots—first two, then a flurry. The driver of the pickup truck was shot and killed by police.
Curtis’s instincts kicked in again. He jumped on top of his wife to shield her from the gunshots. “I didn’t let her get up. I just started dragging her to this bar,” he said. When the frantic couple wasn’t allowed to enter, they moved quickly to a strip club called Rick’s Cabaret.
Management was closing the doors, but Curtis forced them open and threw his wife inside before following her. “The wreck was only about ten or fifteen yards away from us,” he said. Once inside the club’s foyer, Curtis checked on Brittany to ensure she wasn’t hurt. “I’m yelling and telling them there’s an active shooter outside,” he said, but it seemed the patrons and staff were oblivious. “They were still partying, still drinking, and the strippers were still stripping.”
Rick’s Cabaret is a two-story establishment promoted as an upscale gentleman’s club. Curtis noted the lack of windows on the first level. “My wife and I were in the back of the club freaking out.” Eventually, someone from the second level came down and confirmed how bad the situation was. Moments later, the lights came on, and police entered, ordering everyone out. Officers created a route for the couple with their bodies, instructing them not to look back.
Curtis glanced back anyway and saw the carnage, pain, and suffering as they were rushed off Bourbon Street. They didn’t stop until they reached the Q&C Hotel and Bar New Orleans, where they were staying, about a 15-minute walk away.
Curtis described the scene on Bourbon Street as a war zone, like something from a horror movie. At least 14 people were killed, and dozens were injured in what the FBI is calling a terrorist attack. Jeremy and Brittany Curtis, newlyweds preparing to celebrate their first anniversary on Jan. 14, found their lives upended by the unforgettable terror of New Year’s Day.
“We didn’t get back to our hotel until around five o’clock,” Curtis said, noting the attack occurred a little after three in the morning. The couple has since reached out to their marriage counselor for help coping with the trauma. “She’s connecting us to one of her colleagues who specializes in trauma therapy,” Curtis said.
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