Alnwick men 'incredibly fortunate' to avoid Krakow shooting horror
A group of Alnwick men were in Krakow city centre at the same time as a gunman went on a violent rampage.
Six people were killed and 16 injured in the mass shooting in the Polish city’s historic Market Square on Saturday.
The eight men from Alnwick, who were all uninjured, were: Will Athey, Louis Scott, Taylor Dodd, Alex Osbourn, James Preston, Lewis Barlow, Jack Driver and Connor Brown.
The city break had been organised to celebrate Will’s 19th birthday.
He said: “We were all on electric scooters. Two of us were heading for the Market Square because I was going to Zara. I heard what sounded like banging in the distance and just thought it was fireworks being set off.
"We then saw a lot of people running towards us and it was only then that we started to realise what was going on.”
A local man in his 50s died just outside the Zara store.
"We were incredibly fortunate,” said Will. “The only reason we weren’t in that Zara is because we got a bit lost on the way. We were very lucky.”
The rest of the group joined others fleeing the scene in barricading themselves into a nearby restaurant.
It was only later when the group returned to their hotel that they learnt the full extent of the incident.
“It was all a bit weird, I don’t know how to describe it,” said Will. “It just wasn’t the sort of thing you’d expect to happen, especially in a place like Poland.”
The suspected gunman, 24, was critically injured in a shoot-out with police and died in hospital on Monday.