Paris terror attacks: 'I thought of September 11'

A woman being evacuated after the shooting at the Bataclan concert hall. Photo / AP

A French journalist has given a chilling account of seeing blood spilled across the pavement, people lying on the ground and a surge of people fleeing from the Paris concert hall where at least a hundred were gunned down.

According to Le Monde French journalist Daniel Psenny, he was working in his apartment behind the Bataclan concert hall when the violent attacks unfolded.

Initially he thought the shots he heard came from the cop movie playing on his television.

"But the noise was so strong, so I went to the window."

While he'd seen evacuations unfold from the concert hall before, he said the sheer mass of people running made him think it was more than just a false alarm.

"But this time, everyone was running from every side. I saw guys on the ground, blood...I understood that there was something serious...I thought of images of September 11."

A video he took showed people running, some limping evidently injured and others being dragged.

Mr Psenny decided to try and offer his place as refuge and went out of the building where he saw a man lying on the pavement.

With the help of another man he dragged in the injured American man, who had been shot in the leg, only to himself be shot in the arm.

"I remember having felt as if a cracker had exploded in my left arm and I saw it pissing with blood."

Medics evacuate a woman from the Bataclan concert hall. Photo / AP

Together with the other man they took the injured man up to neighbours on the fourth floor.

"He vomited, he was cold...we believed he was going to die."

Unfortunately paramedics were unable to help evacuate them and so Mr Psenny was left to call a doctor friend for help, who talked him through how to make a tourniquet with his shirt.

There they waited until the charge at the concert hall was done and they were rescued by the armed forces and taken to hospital at around three that morning.

Psenny's full account is on Le Monde. Warning: graphic content.