WESTERN TELEGRAPH EXCLUSIVE: Mumbai terror survivor hid from gunmen

9:40am Wednesday 3rd December 2008

A gap year student who escaped with his life as terrorists gunned down people in a Mumbai hotel is back home in Laugharne this week.

Eighteen-year-old Jeremy Lewis is lucky to be alive after gunmen opened fire in the Leopold café.

He was on the second floor with a friend watching the India v England cricket match on television when they heard bursts of gunfire downstairs.

"I could hear the bullets hitting objects, people were screaming and trying to get out," says Jeremy, the son of Beryn and Tamzin Lewis.

There were around 50 people in the upstairs area of the café and the only means of escape were two staircases that would have taken them directly into the room where the terrorists were firing.

During the panic Jeremy was separated from his friend and feared he had been killed. Jeremy hid with seven others in a small storeroom underneath one of the staircases. Although he was terrified that the gunmen would come upstairs he kept calm by helping others.

"One of the men who was also in the storeroom started getting very irrational but by talking to him to calm him down I was able to take my mind off the reality of the situation," says Jeremy, a former pupil of Netherwood School, Saundersfoot.

After an hour and a half, when he was sure the gunmen had left, he went downstairs with the others. "There were bodies and blood everywhere, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing," he says.

Fortunately his friend had escaped and the pair were reunited soon afterwards. Within hours the British Embassy had secured them a flight back to Britain.

Jeremy, who hopes to study at Cirencester Agricultural College before joining the Army, knows he was lucky to escape with minor injuries after so many people lost their lives.

When he first arrived at the café with his friend they had attempted to find a seat downstairs.

"There was no seats free in the downstairs café which is why we went upstairs. I realise now just how lucky we were,’’ he says.