A doctor who works for Turkey’s emergency services described the devastation after the suicide bombings that left dozens of people dead and hundreds injured at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on Tuesday night.
“One bomb exploded right at the security check point,” the doctor, who asked to remain anonymous, told Epoch Times in an interview. “I heard that one of the terrorists ... started shooting” as people ran away, she said, adding that the assailant then detonated his bomb.
The doctor indicated that she helped injured people outside of the terminal where taxis usually wait, but some of her colleagues went inside to help people near the passport control point.
“There were many injured and dead people in these two areas,” she said.
The process of dealing with the injured “was very difficult for me,” she said. Doctors and emergency workers had to make the “decision whether they will survive or not. I walked over many dead bodies. [It was a ] very terrible feeling.”
Three terrorists attacked the international arrivals hall and a nearby parking lot with gunfire and bombs. According to Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu, the death toll has risen to 41 and the injury toll was 239. Around 109 people have since been discharged from hospitals.
“When we were working there, we had no idea if there would be further explosions or not,” the doctor said. “I worked at the airport until 3 a.m.”
