An American State Department contractor who survived the attack on a Mali hotel Friday said he didn't think he was going to make it out of the building alive, NBC News reported.
Terry Kemp was one of around a dozen Americans rescued after the siege on the Radisson Blu hotel, waged by gunmen shouting "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great."
Kemp was about to leave for the American Embassy with another man morning Friday morning when a group of at least four men approached the hotel and opened fire, he said.
"A group of four or five men came across the street, started shooting, took out the guards," Kemp, of Florida, recalled. "They started shooting at us, we ran back inside, at which time, I fell."
They set fire to the room, and eventually heavy smoke made it impossible for Kemp to stay there, he said. He crawled to a different room and called authorities to update them on his location so they could bring him to safety.
Twenty people, including one American, were dead by the time the hours-long raid concluded. Two attackers were killed.
