A bullet in a shoe and people trampling over each other: Witnesses to the shooting at YouTube describe moments of panic

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A bullet in a shoe and people trampling over each other: Witnesses to the shooting at YouTube describe moments of panic

YouTube Shooting

Melia Robinson Business Insider

A worker outside the Carls Jr. restaurant across the street from YouTube HQ

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Dennis, the owner of Hashes & Brews, was having a cigarette break outside around 12:30 on Tuesday when he heard loud banging noises that he thought was a nail gun from someone doing construction.

But the numerous successive bangs - 15 or 17 by his estimation - sounded too rapid to be a nail gun.

He looked across the street and saw "a whole bunch of people just trampling over each other, coming out the front doors of YouTube. They were running, people just running."

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Dennis, who declined to give his last name, waved a group of three of them into the restaurant.

One man was bleeding from the face, Dennis told Business insider. But the wound was not severe - as if a bullet had perhaps grazed him, Dennis said. He brought over towels and a first aid kit, and directed the man to the bathroom to wash up. Another woman had a bullet lodged into the sole of her leather shoe.

YouTube shooting

Melia Robinson Business Insider

"They were shaking, they were making me shake. This is a situation where you see in the movies, not in real life," Dennis said, as he described a shooting at YouTube's San Bruno, California headquarters on Tuesday that left 1 person dead and at least three wounded.

Police said a female was found inside the YouTube building with what they believed to be self-inflicted wounds, though the complete details of the event, including the identity of the shooter and any motive, remain unclear.

But employees and bystanders who fled the scene on Tuesday described the chaotic events to Business Insider reporters.

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One person with a gunshot wound in the leg sought refuge at a Carl's Jr restaurant across the street from the YouTube building. Mike Finney, one of the company's employees, tried to help staunch her bleeding, a spokesperson for the Carl's Jr parent company confirmed to Business Insider.

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