Many Lewiston residents gathered near the city hospital Wednesday evening, searching for loved ones they had no news of after the killings at a bowling alley, restaurant and distribution center in Lewiston, Maine.
• Also read: Active shooter in the USA: More than 22 dead and several injured in Lewiston
According to the Sun Journal, at least two dozen people were outside Central Maine Medical Center hoping to hear from their loved ones.
Among them was Kathy Lebel, the co-owner of the restaurant-bar Schemengees, one of the two scenes of the murders in which at least 22 people died and around fifty were injured. Ms. Lebel was not there when the shooter arrived.
She said customers were having fun when the gunman entered and opened fire.
“It was just a nice evening with people playing for money. That’s the last thing you’d expect, right? I feel like everything is a nightmare,” she told the daily.
Another person standing outside the hospital told the Sun Journal that a friend of his attended the Schemengees bag party. He hasn’t answered his phone since the shooting, she said.
The people there were asked to give their names and those of the people they were looking for to the security forces and staff, who could then carry out the checks.
For her part, Nichoel Wyman Arel was walking home with her daughter when she saw people running from the bowling alley.
“There were so many police cars, so many ambulances. We tried to understand what was happening. Was it another bomb threat or a gas leak,” the mother who filmed the scene told CNN.
Ms. Wyman Arel said she saw at least one person, who appeared to be bleeding from the stomach, leave the store with the help of others.
A city councilman who lives half a kilometer from the bowling alley told CNN that he was frightened by the events because he lives near a wooded area. “We’ve blocked all the doors, we’ve grabbed our weapons and we’re waiting,” Robert McCarthy told CNN.