Survivor Recounts Horror He Experienced In Wednesday's Terror Attack
HIGHLAND (CBSLA.com) — Among the survivors from Wednesday's terror attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino is a colleague of one of the shooters, Syed Farook.
Minutes before Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, slaughtered 14 people and wounded 21 others, Bacarri went to the restroom, which is next to the conference room where the massacre occurred.
He said he heard loud noises coming from the next room. "I'm getting paper towels. To me, it seemed like a bomb went off," he recounted. "The impact of that caused me to get some injuries. I looked back at the mirror. Saw that I was bleeding. Looked back at the area where I figured this stuff was coming. I saw some impact marks. Told every body would be an attack. I explained. Get down. Secure yourself in place. And we barricaded the door and waited until help arrived."
When asked if he ever imagined the gunman could be his colleague with whom he shared a cubicle, Bacarri said no. "It's really sick." Baccari and Farook shared a cubicle, but not much else. He said Farook kept to himself.
Bacarri said Farook did not say much about his baby or being a father. "I would try to reach out and talk to him and I wouldn't get a response. So I just left it at that,"
He said he never saw any signs of Farook being radicalized. "Aside from him leaving the country (to go to Mecca), I thought that was odd. But it's not in my religious belief. If that's your belief to go to Mecca, whatever. That's for you to do," Bacarri said.
Wednesday morning, Farook left the work holiday party and returned with his wife and weapons. "I don't think it was that day that upset him. To do what he did took preparation. You can't grab a gun off a shelf and run in there and start blasting people. You can't get an accomplice to come along with you. So how do you prevent that?" asked Bacarri. "It's just horrific. I believe it's a terrorist attack."
Baccari said his body still has what he calls "impact fragments" from when bullets hit the restroom wall. But he said he felt very lucky to be alive. He doesn't know when he will return to work. For now, he is trying to recover from the tragedy and reach out to his colleagues to lend support.