Ambassador Chris Stevens was still breathing as video emerges showing Libyans trying to rescue him
Published: Monday, September 17, 2012, 2:20 PM Updated: Monday, September 17, 2012, 10:40 PMCAIRO — Libyans tried to rescue Ambassador Chris Stevens, cheering "God is great" and rushing him to a hospital after they discovered him still clinging to life inside the U.S. Consulate, according to witnesses and a new video that emerged Monday from last week's attack in the city of Benghazi.
The Libyans who found him expressed frustration that there was no ambulance and no first aid on hand, leaving him to be slung over a man's shoulder to be carried to a car.
"There was not a single ambulance to carry him. Maybe he was handled the wrong way," said Fahd al-Bakoush, a freelance videographer who shot the footage. "They took him to a private car."
Soon after the attack, Libyan civilians roamed freely around the trashed consulate, its walls blacked and furniture burned. Among them were the videographer al-Bakoush, and a photographer and art student he often works with.
They heard a panicked shout, "I stepped over a dead man," and rushed to see what was going on, al-Bakoush said. The body had been found inside a dark room with a locked door accessible only by a window. A group of men pulled him out and realized he was a foreigner and still alive.
He was breathing and his eyelids flickered, al-Bakoush said. "He was alive," he said. "No doubt. His face was blackened and he was like a paralyzed person."
Video taken by al-Bakoush and posted on YouTube shows Stevens being carried out of the room through a window with a raised shutter. "Bring him out, man," someone shouts. "Out of the way, out of the way!"
"Alive, Alive!" come other shouts, then a cheer of "God is great."
The next scene shows Stevens lying on a tile floor, with one man touching his neck to check his pulse. Al-Bakoush said that after that scene, they put Stevens in a private car to rush to the hospital.
The video has been authenticated since Stevens' face is clearly visible and he is wearing the same white t-shirt seen in authenticated photos of him being carried away on another man's shoulders, presumably moments later. The photographer and student who were with al-Bakoush at the scene gave the same account as he did.
"We were happy to see him alive. The youths tried to rescue him. But there was no security, no ambulances, nothing to help," said Ahmed Shams, the 22-year-old arts student.
When they entered the consulate, "there was no one around. There was no fire fighters, no ambulances, no relief," said the photographer, Abdel-Qader Fadl.
The accounts of all three witnesses mesh with that of the doctor who treated Stevens that night.
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE...
H.R. Clinton
They would collaborate even if they weren't telling the truth.