A family from Windsor, Ont. is still in shock after experiencing the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting.
“I'll never experience this fear again. This is a once in a lifetime fear,” Kim La Riviere told CTV Kitchener.
The La Riviere family had just finished a cruise and was waiting for their flight home to Canada when a gunman open fired at baggage claim.
La Riviere said it was then that a surge people came rushing through the section she and her family were sitting in.
“That was just one of the scariest moments for me,” she said. “Seeing a tsunami of humans screaming for their lives.”
She said her thought immediately went to her children.
“The first thing my husband did was he just said ‘grab the kids’ and we flew under the chairs and lay on top of the kids,” she said. “And my 8-year-old looked out the window and she could see these military guys running, and she said ‘Mummy why are these people running over there?’ and I said ‘I don't know why honey.’”
After hiding under airport chairs, the family said it managed to make it out of the airport and onto the tarmac where they hid behind airport equipment. They eventually found an exit beyond the runway that was surrounded by police.
Five travellers were killed in the shooting and at least six others were wounded.
Esteban Santiago, 26, has been charged with an act of violence at an international airport resulting in death as well as weapons charges.
With a report from CTV Kitchener’s Victoria Levy and files from CTV London
