Kenora man vows to return to Paris despite being in stadium during attack

A Kenora man who was at the Stade de France in Paris on Friday when explosions went off says he will return to the city, and the experience hasn't soured him on travelling there or anywhere else.

Mort Goss was at the stadium Friday night with his son Nate, watching a soccer match between France and Germany.

He remembers people grumbling about being frisked on the way in, and just a few minutes into the game, he heard a "big boom," he said.

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The game ended, and that's when announcements came that people could only leave by two exits, and certain people wouldn't be able to return to their vehicles, Goss said.

Suddenly, thousands of people were running and screaming in Goss's direction.

"I grabbed my son's coat about as hard as I could — my hand was hurting for a day or two afterwards — and held on, saying, 'Don't fall! Don't fall!'" Goss recalled on Monday. "In the meantime, I'm starting to fall and panicking, trying to get my feet, and there's other people's feet under my feet, and we didn't know quite what to do. We knew we had to move back to a safer area."

Goss and his son hid behind pillars, something he said hundreds of people did to avoid being trampled.

"You could see a lot of terror. You could see a lot of families holding onto their kids and hiding behind these pillars," he said. "We didn't know if there were guns, bombs, knives, crazy people coming at us down there."

Goss and his son eventually ran outside.

"Then I started to see and hear more emergency vehicles than I ever heard in my life rushing every which way. Helicopters [were] overhead," he said. "We just tried to move as quickly and as far from the stadium as we could."

By the end of the night, more than 100 people were dead and hundreds more injured in a series of six attacks in Paris.

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Goss and his son flew out of the city Saturday morning.

On Tuesday, the number of dead rose to 129, and the number injured was about 350.

Though the situation hasn't soured Goss on travel, he is more nervous in crowds than he was before, he said.

Still, Goss said he will go back to Paris, and he loves the city.