Citizens who saved visitors at Crocus will be nominated for awards
In Russia, March 24 has been declared a national day of mourning due to the tragedy at “Crocus City Hall” near Moscow. The rescue operation has already been completed, but the debris at the concert hall site is still being cleared. According to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, among the deceased are 133 people, with 152 more injured.
The Chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, instructed to establish the identities of everyone involved in rescuing people during the terrorist attack. The department will consider awarding these citizens.
One such individual turned out to be a locksmith named Alexander from the city of Dmitrov in the Moscow region. During the attack on the building, he evacuated children, according to Shot. Alexander was in the hall with his wife. When panic broke out, and people started running towards the exits, the man with two children aged 4 and 6 hid behind the bar counter. He instructed them to crawl to the door. According to Alexander, he was most afraid for the children’s lives.
“When they started shooting everyone in the corridor, I shielded the children with my back and began to lead them out into the corridor,” the man shared.
He and his wife were unharmed.
However, not all stories of rescuing people from “Crocus” ended well. A disabled man saved his girlfriend at the cost of his own life. The mother of the deceased recounted that Maxim and his girlfriend went to the concert of the band “Picnic” that evening. The young man did not manage to evacuate because the exits were not equipped with ramps for wheelchair users.
“They shot him several times in the chest, and he fell out of the wheelchair right onto his girlfriend, who was looking him in the eyes,” Maxim’s mother tells.
Thus, he shielded his companion with his own body and saved her. The girl survived but required hospitalization.
Another hero was a 15-year-old boy named Islam, who worked in the cloakroom at “Crocus.” He managed to evacuate more than 100 people from the building. The teenager said that during the job orientation, they were briefed on emergency procedures with each employee. The boy followed the instructions and directed people to the exits when the building caught fire.
Islam noticed that a group of visitors was heading towards a dead-end and started explaining to them how to get to the exit to the “Expo” exhibition hall territory, and from there through the service entrance to the street.
One of the security guards at “Crocus” helped dozens of visitors exit through service rooms and staircases. He led the group of people around the terrorists and prevented them from panicking.
Members of the “Picnic” band’s crew also participated in rescuing people from “Crocus.” For instance, 42-year-old band operator Ivan Pomorin said that on that evening, he was supervising 17 operators. Each of them was stationed in different parts of the hall. When the shooting started, Ivan ordered everyone via radio to abandon their equipment and run behind the stage. Along with other visitors, the technical team escaped through the service entrance.
Two girls from the technical crew were on the balcony. They witnessed the shooting in the hall and the moment when the terrorists set fire to the curtains with flammable mixtures. Witnesses note that the militants were well-oriented in the building and knew where everything was located. They wanted to block people’s paths to evacuation exits with a wall of fire.