Paris Attacks: Media Exposure Surprises Brazilian Injured in "Surreal" Attack

11/16/2015 - 09h19

Architect Gabriel Sepe, aged 29, of São Paulo, who was shot in one of the attacks in Paris, on Friday, November 13, told his friends who visited him in the hospital that the event was "surreal," and asked them to calm down his parents - he also seemed surprised with the story's exposure in the media.

He was shot three times in his back at about 9:25 p.m. on Friday when he was having dinner on the sidewalk of restaurant Le Petit Cambodge (in the tenth district of the French capital) with a group of seven friends.

Psychoanalysis student Camila Issa also was injured by Kalashnikov rifle shots which came from inside a car.

Last night, Sepe and Issa were conscious and in good health, said the Brazilian general consul in Paris, Maria Edileuza Fontenele Reis.

Sepe's parents arrived in Paris on Sunday morning, November 15, as did Issa's mother and an aunt. They did not want to give interviews.

Sepe had travelled to Europe to present a study at a congress dedicated to the legacy of Swiss architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965) in Valencia, Spain.

Sepe's friends say that he is usually reserved and shy, but on the night of the attacks he was talkative and facetious. Sepe and Issa were the closest to the vehicle from which the shots were made.

"We saw points of light and the figure of a man," says architect Guilherme Pianca, 28, who was also at the table, but was not injured.

Pianca and his friends, Diego Mauro Ribeiro, 28, and José Lira, 48, managed to find safe shelter in the storage room of a neighboring supermarket. Ribeiro had the right side of his forehead cut and also suffered some scratches.

After five minutes had passed, they asked to leave the storage room and looked for the rest of the group. They found Sepe lying on the floor sideways and covered in blood, but he was calm.

"Because he was speaking and conscious, the first firefighters to arrive did not give him much attention. It took them more than 20 minutes to put an oxygen mask on him and then they gave him sterile saline solution and put him on a stretcher. We kept telling him: 'Don't sleep, Gabriel,'" says Pianca.

None of them were allowed to accompany Sepe in the ambulance. Lira and Pianca were the first to arrive at the hospital. "At the front desk, nobody wanted to give us any information. We were afraid," says Lira.

Sepe's friends say that he had received a blood transfusion before he underwent a thoracic surgery to remove a bullet from his lung.

It was after midnight when they received the news that the procedure had been successful and the bleeding had been stopped. Sepe was sedated. At that time, Lira managed to call Sepe's father, Abel, and calmed him down.

On Saturday, November 14, when Sepe was already awake, he received visits from his friends in the afternoon and at night.

"That was surreal, wasn't it?" said Sepe about what had happened. When he learned that he had drawn attention of the press, Sepe joked: "Oh, damn it!" He said he didn't feel pain any more, just a slight discomfort.

Ribeiro, who before Friday, was just a close friend of Lira's, now says he feels permanently linked to the other six people. "It was strange and beautiful to see each person's vulnerability and strength."

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

Read the article in the original language