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Bloomington man visiting Nice recounts attack

NICE, France (WISH) — A Bloomington man in Nice, France, during Thursday’s terror attack spoke with 24-Hour News 8 about what he witnessed. Lyle Feigenbaum sat just feet away from where the attack happened in a Facetime conversation Friday.

“That’s the port of Nice on the other side of this,” he said while panning the phone’s camera. “Nice itself, where it happened on the promenade. So we’re sitting having dinner. The fireworks are going off. It was kind of crazy. We couldn’t see the fireworks, but we could hear them. There was a dog barking. It was just a nice dinner.”

Feigenbaum and his wife are visiting Nice for the first time. They were having dinner just blocks away when the attack began.

“Because it was Bastille Day, because of the fireworks, I can’t imagine how many parents were there with their children,” he said.

But the Feigenbaum’s kids are back home. Which, as it turns out, is important.

“Had we had our children, we would’ve been there because they would’ve wanted to see the fireworks. That’s pretty scary to think about,” he said.

Also troubling was the chaos that ensued after police say 31-year-old Mohamad Lahouaiej Bouhel intentionally drove a large truck into a crowd of people. They were celebrating Bastille Day, the French national holiday.

“It’s scary to see the stampede of people. It was an experience I had never seen before, and we could see people’s faces — you could tell that something happened,” Feigenbaum explained.

Dozens of people were killed in the terror attack, including children. Feigenbaum feels lucky his life and his family’s lives were sparred.

“My wife and I are certainly not the victims. We feel awful for the victims. It was a little strange, very strange for us to be in Nice at the time.” he said.

The Feigenbaum’s wrap up their vacation on Saturday, but Lyle says he won’t let this attack stop him from going back to France.