Standing motionless with a hand covering her mouth, a woman stares at the lifeless body at her feet.
As blood pools out below, a security guard from a local bar attempts to drag her away.
But she refuses to leave, alone and frozen by the horror in the middle of Bourbon Street, New Orleans.
Just moments earlier, the now bare road where she stands, the hub of the city’s legendary bar scene and drinkers’ paradise, had been packed with throngs of party-goers celebrating the new year.
The pickup truck used in the atrocity. At the back is a pole flying what looks like a dark cloth
For many, spending New Year’s Eve in the historic city’s French Quarter, which dates back to 1718, would have been a rare experience.
But at around 3.15am, a man driving a white Ford pickup truck drove around the barriers erected to protect the public, put his foot down and rammed into the crowd.
At least 10 people were killed and 35 others were injured. The victims were mostly locals rather than tourists, officials said.
After speeding down the one-way street, the vehicle crashed outside the four-star Royal Sonesta Hotel between Bienville and Conti Streets, the hood of the truck crumpled.
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Photos showed what looked like a black cloth or flag that authorities believe may have been linked to Islamic State, the terror group known for its opposition to alcohol, dancing and hedonism of any kind.
In the immediate aftermath, Jimmy Cothran described how he had moments earlier been walking down Bourbon Street towards Canal Street when he noticed “a lot of commotion” and slipped into a nearby nightclub.
When a group of women ran inside and started hiding under tables, he initially thought they were being chased or shot at and went up to the nightclub’s balcony to see what was happening.
An aerial view of the crime scene – Gerald Herbert/AP
Mr Cothran, who is from New Orleans, told NBC News he saw the bodies of “horribly disfigured” victims strewn across the street. Two looked “at least alive” but others were “graphically deceased”.
One victim, he said, had visible tyre tracks on his body.
“It just kept going,” he said. “Like, every eye shot, body, body, body, body.”
Whit Davis, 22, was in a nearby bar in the city’s popular French Quarter as the attack happened.
“Never seen a scene like what I just saw on Bourbon Street,” he wrote on social media.
“If me and my friends had left the bar 10 minutes before we did, who knows if we’d be alive right now?” he added.
Bodies are seen on the road in the aftermath of the attack
Mr Davis, from Shreveport, Louisiana, told the BBC: “We had been on and around Bourbon Street since the beginning of the evening.
“When we were in the bar, we didn’t hear shooting or crashes because the music was so loud,” he said.
People then began hiding under tables as though it was “an active shooter drill”, he said.
When they were allowed to leave the bar, he and his friends “were walking past dead and injured all over the street”.
CCTV image of revellers before 10 people were killed when a vehicle rammed into the crowd – UNPIXS
Kevin Garcia, 22, told CNN: “All I seen was a truck slamming into everyone on the left side of Bourbon sidewalk. A body came flying at me.” He added that he also heard gunshots.
Despite initially saying Wednesday’s horrific attack was “not a terrorist event”, contradicting LaToya Cantrell, the mayor of New Orleans, the FBI later said it was investigating it as “an act of terrorism”.
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The driver, who was understood to have been wearing a helmet and body armour, fired shots and struck two police officers, before being killed in a shootout.
Officials found what appeared to be improvised explosive devices in the truck and were trying to determine if they were “viable”.
Officials on Wednesday were trying to work out whether the suspect had used a long-gun rifle to fire into the crowd while he was driving, officials told NBC News.
New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell makes a statement – Gerald Herbert/AP
“This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could,” Anne Kirkpatrick, the New Orleans Police Department superintendent, said.
“Because of the intentional mindset of this perpetrator who went around our barricades in order to conduct this, he was hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” she added.
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