It's been just over a week since a gunman opened fire at a Florida airport, killing five people, but for a B.C. family who witnessed the chaos firsthand, it feels like much longer ago.
A family from the Lower Mainland was inside the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Broward County, Fla. on Jan. 6, when a shooter opened fire in the baggage claim area.
"It feels surreal. It doesn't feel like it was just last week," Dan Kovacs recalled on Saturday.
His extended family was going through security, on their way back from a Caribbean vacation, when the airport erupted with shouting, alarms and running security agents.
"They started yelling 'Code red,' the alarms started going off in the building and all the TSA guys started running at us," Kovacs said.
"It was very chaotic…People were saying, 'Run, run, run,' but where to? There was no direction given of where to run."
The family did not hear the gunfire, but soon learned the airport had become the target of a mass shooting.
Another member of the family, Gary Bryant, was worried for his children: "It was just absolute terror. I will never, ever forget that look."
The family said it was frustrated with the way the situation was handled. With so many panicked people, few airline staff were helpful or even around.
They saw Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents running away instead of helping.
"I watched one of them knock a man and his daughter over and step on him to get out," Bryant said.
Kovacs said there were elderly people being knocked down and trampled in the rush to flee the area. Bryant said he saw a mother running through the crowds, screaming because she couldn't find her children.
A child was seen walking around screaming and crying because they couldn't find their parents, he said.
The family ended up on the tarmac, along with hundreds of others, and it was only then that Kovacs and his wife realized they didn't have their shoes.
They spent seven hours at the airport, and it took days for the family to finally get home.
Esteban Santiago, 26, has been charged in the mass shooting and may face the death penalty if convicted.
With a report from CTV Vancouver's Michele Brunoro
