Tunisian doctor who treated attack victims remembers horric scene

Описание: (1 Jul 2015) LEAD IN:
A Tunisian emergency doctor who responded to last Friday's beach attack has spoken about her first moments on the scene.
The paramedic has been struggling to deal with the memory of what she saw there.
STORY-LINE:
Junior doctor Hanene M'barek was not supposed to be working last Friday.
She was meeting a colleague for coffee, when they learned about the attack on tourists.
All emergency teams from Sahloul University hospital were being sent to Port El-Hantaoui.
As the scale of the tragedy became clear, M'barek called in to work so she could help.
Soon, she was headed to the beach resort and was part of the second unit to arrive.
M'barek describes an horrific scene.
"When I entered the first part of the hotel, at the entrance of the garden, there was a place full of blood, a lot of blood, and there was a white sheet," she says.
"At first, I figured it was a covered dead body, and I thought it was the attacker, the terrorist himself. I said 'That's great, they killed him'. Then, I made two more steps I saw his leg which was hidden by a car there, and I realised that it was a tourist covered," she recalls.
M'barek started bandaging the wounded and the first aid she provided most likely saved many lives.
The tragedy of the moment however, is engraved in her memory.
An idyllic beach scene, shattered by a gunman's rampage.
"It was really terrible, people where scattered on the floor, blood was everywhere, and bullets were everywhere. Especially the view on the beach was terrible," M'barek says.
"You see people laying next to their sun cream, sudoku games, and their books were still there. They were laying there to sunbathe, and the next second they were dead," she continues.
All those injured were rushed to hospital and only the dead bodies were left at the scene.
M'barek remembers it feeling like a film, with the crime scene marked with police tape.
After working on many cases, M'barek was sent back to the hospital.
It was only when M'barek returned to the hospital that the full horror of what had happened started to become clear.
"Then I went back here. I had a nervous breakdown. When we finished work, I started realising things and I couldn't take it. I burst into tears. My colleagues saw me panicking, especially when we went upstairs to rest. So, they asked me to go home right away," she says.
"I went back home and I spoke so little, especially about the story of the patient who was found by my senior doctor holding her dead husband and she didn't want to let go of him. Then when we started evacuating her to give her first aid, we realised that half of her face was disfigured, and her left eye was gone."
In a half-hour rampage, the attacker shot and killed 38 people, mostly tourists as he moved from the beach, through a pool area and into the Imperial Marhaba Hotel.
The aftermath was devastating for M'barek, who is clearly traumatised by the experience.
"Psychologically speaking, what can I say! When I sit by myself, I review the previous scene over and over again. I remember everything. I can't sleep anymore. The first two days I couldn't sleep at all. So, I took a couple of days off. And until today, I couldn't get out of the house, because I was scared. Moreover, I lost taste for everything, to see this happening in Tunisia was really terrifying. It was terrible."
Some tourists remain at the beach resort, laying flowers and paying their respects to the dead.
33 of the victims have been identified, including at least 25 British.

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