The ex-girlfriend of Nick Alexander, the British man killed in the Paris terror attacks last November, has told an inquest into his death how she tried to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
In a statement read out today at the inquest in Essex, Helen Wilson described how the 35-year-old merchandise manager for Eagles of Death Metal was shot in the stomach and chest at the Bataclan while the band performed, according to the BBC.
The pair, who had stayed friends after the end of their two-year relationship, played dead when three gunmen entered the music venue where 89 people lost their lives.
“Nick and I were still talking, I told him not to move and keep his eyes closed. We were playing at being dead,” read the statement.
“The man was tall and had dark hair, he came in our direction and started shooting. I tried to protect Nick by covering his body with my legs and wrapping my arms.”
“We were holding hands the whole time. He told me that it was hard to breathe so I told him to squeeze my hand and was telling him to stay with me.”
The emotional testimony explains that she was giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when a bomb went off.
“I protected myself and asked Nick if he was OK, he said: ‘I’m going to die.’ I told him that he wasn’t, he said he couldn’t breathe.”
Describing Alexander as the “love of her life, she then relayed his final moments, according to The Guardian.
“At the time I was holding Nick he felt cold and his eyes had changed, his body was lifeless.”
Of the 130 people who died in the Paris terror attacks, 89 were killed at the Bataclan. The senior coroner for Essex, Caroline Beasley-Murray, ruled Alexander was unlawfully killed.