An eyewitness said that she saw "definitely more than a dozen" people leaving the bowling alley where one of the shootings in Lewiston, Maine, happened Wednesday evening.
Nichoel Wyman Arel described a large police and ambulance presence outside of Sparetime Recreation following the deadly incident. Arel said she saw officers patting people down as they came out of the bowling alley.
Arel was driving home with a friend from Girl Scouts when they came across the tragic scene. Arel captured footage of people being patted down and leaving the bowling alley.
She saw a person who looked like they "had blood all over them" but couldn't tell if they were injured themselves. "It's all kind of a blur. I wasn't really taking in a lot of the details," Arel said.
Arel also said that she saw children on the scene with their families.
"Yeah, there were kids, that's — Like, looking back, like that was probably the hardest part, seeing — just families, families pouring out of there and knowing that that happened in there while they were probably just trying to have a family night," Arel told CNN.
Arel's young daughter was with her when she witnessed the aftermath of the shooting.
"She was definitely scared. She's like — she started crying and said, 'This is a scary world we live in mom.' I'm like, 'I know.'"
When she got home, Arel said that she locked up the house, including windows. She owns a firearm which she said made her daughter "feel better to know that I was carrying it around."
Arel said that her daughter "was scared somebody was going to come into our home."
Lewiston residents are being told to continue to shelter in place.
