An Alabama woman wounded in Wednesday’s New Orleans truck attack said her mother’s quick thinking during an emergency phone call helped save her life.
Alexis Scott-Windham, 23, of Mobile, Alabama, was in the French Quarter the evening before the attack to celebrate New Year’s Eve with friends.
She was one of scores of people that attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, hit with a rented truck in the early hours of New Year’s Day, a massacre which ultimately killed 14 people.
Scott-Windham, after the truck clipped her, was then hit in the foot during gunfire between Jabbar and police that followed the vehicle attack
The 23-year-old looked around and saw a dead body next to her, and noticed her foot was “leaking” blood, she told NBC News.
As she waited for an ambulance, her friends called her mother, who advised putting a tourniquet around Scott-Windham’s ankle to choke off the blood flow.
“So I just told my daughter’s friend to just tie her other sock around her leg so she wouldn’t bleed so heavy,” Tryphena Scott-Windham told the broadcaster, saying she’d seen people use such treatments on TV. “I just blurted that out. I was in straight panic mode.”
“I’m just sitting there with my homemade tourniquet,” her daugter added in an interview with NBC. “I was just thankful. I was blessed. I was just grateful. I was just like, ‘Lord, I’m just glad I made it to the hospital, Lord, because it could have been way worse.’”
Strangers later drove Scott-Windham to the hospital.
Her ordeal wasn’t over though.
Scott-Windham said she was originally denied a leave request at her job at an Amazon warehouse, though the company later said it had approved the request.
“We wish her a full recovery and look forward to welcoming her back to work once she’s able,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel told NOLA.com.
The incident left the 23-year-old with lasting wounds, both physically and mentally, according to her GoFundMe page.
“Because of this incident, I am unable to work and provide for myself and my one-year-old daughter. I am asking for help simply because I need it, not only for myself but for my child,” she wrote. “I am also willing to go to therapy (both physical and mental) to assist in my road to recovery.”
In addition to those injured, 14 people were killed in the attack, while police fatally shot Jabbar.
The victims include a former Princeton football star, an aspiring nurse, and a new college student.
Jabbar, who pledged his loyalty to the terror group ISIS, is believed to have acted alone, and planted explosive devices in the French Quarter which never detonated.
Investigators are scrutinizing when the U.S. Army veteran became radicalized, including probing a 2023 trip to Egypt.
