NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 15 – Brian Gatimu, a tour operator based inside the 14 Riverside Drive complex has a flat battery to thank for, after escaping alive.
The car battery failed, saving him from a face-to-face encounter with the terrorists.
“I had left the lights on… talk of God’s doings,” Gatimu told Capital FM News.
He was done with work and had gone to the parking silo at Belgravia building to get his car.
“I walked a floor down where I found someone who was leaving. I asked him to jump start my car which he agreed,” he narrated.
Minutes after his car’s engine was up and running, they heard a loud bang.
“I saw huge smoke billowing from the entrance. I checked from the rooftop and all I saw was a bullet break a window,” he said.
Again his car played fort for two hours until the police came to his rescue.
“My car is tinted. I stayed inside hoping all is well. I was shaken,” he said recalling how “my friends started calling me.”
While inside, Gatimu decided to go onto Twitter and start updating about the incident. His Twitter handle is @theflyingkenyan.
“Some four officers came calling my name; walking downstairs was my longest walk ever,” he said.
“The officers were extremely aggressive. I could hear screams.”
Though traumatized, he was at the scene long after he was rescued waiting for a friend’s daughter to be found.
Already, a team of foreign special forces have joined their Kenyan counterparts in the operation but several people were still holed up inside the expansive complex.