Gabriel Eslami can’t stop remembering the smell of gun smoke in the air, the shrieks of the wounded, and bodies all around after Saturday’s grizzly massacre outside a popular nightclub in Birmingham, Alabama, that left four people dead and 17 others wounded.
Eslami himself is one of the victims — he was hit with a bullet that ripped through his leg and buttock, then nicked his penis, he told The Post.
The 24-year-old was waiting with his friends in a line of around 100 people outside Hush Lounge in Birmingham’s Five Points neighborhood when he heard gunfire and felt the gunshot.
Authorities have now identified the dead as Anitra Holloman, 21, Tahj Booker, 27, and Carlos McCain, 27, and Roderick Lynn Patterson Jr., 26, reported AL.com.
“It was like a string of Black Cat firecrackers, but a million times louder. It was echoing off the buildings,” Eslami said.
Eslami tried to run, but felt his left leg go numb, leaving him crumpled on the street and gushing blood from a bullet wound.
“I glanced back and all I saw were bodies in the pavement. The air was full of smoke, gun smoke, illuminated by the street lights. It was eerie… People were running, their shoes falling off. There were wallets, keys phones, everywhere,” Eslami recalled.
The shooters, who are currently at large with a $100,000 reward for their capture, were after just one intended target when they unloaded at least 100 rounds into the bustling nightlife district before fleeing in a car, police said.
The attack may have been a hired hit job, and police suspect at least one of their guns to have been outfitted with an illegal “Glock switch” that allowed the weapon to fire at full-auto.
Eslami’s doctors told him the bullet missed a major artery by just millimeters.
At the time, Eslami was terrified we would bleed out. He spotted a bystander hiding behind a car and begged him for help.
“I said, ‘I’m hit! I’m hit!’ I was hoping he would come over and apply pressure, but he just looked at me,” Eslami said. “It was an every-man-for-himself situation.”
Eslami said “puddles of blood” flowed from his leg into the pavement before medics rushed him to a nearby hospital.
“When my parents came, they saw people being told, ‘I’m sorry, your son or daughter has passed away,’ People were fainting in the hallway.”
Eslami is recovering at home with little more than a gash on his privates and bullet hole in his butt — earning him the nickname “Forrest Gump” from his friends.
“I can make jokes about it, but that’s because I’m blessed. Some people didn’t leave that sidewalk.”
