Mother describes how her family escaped the Highland Park gunman's rampage: 'How did we survive?'

• Natalie Lorentz recounted how she shielded her children as they fled from the Highland Park shooter.
• "It was the worst moment of my entire life," she told CBS News.

A woman whose family narrowly escaped the Highland Park shooter's violent rampage described how she and her husband ran from the gunman while shielding their children.

Natalie Lorentz told CBS that she and her husband had just sat down on the side of the street to watch the July 4th parade when she heard the "rapid-fire" gunshots ring out.

"I grabbed my youngest son. My husband had my other two kids. My mom was running with us. She fell and got separated from us," Lorentz said.

She recalled how she and her husband tried shielding their children from the sight of people who had been shot.

"It was the worst moment of my entire life," Lorentz told CBS.

"I feel like I am still in complete panic mode. I don't know how to even make sense of this or begin to process this when I keep thinking that could have been us," she said. "How did we survive? Like, why did we survive?"

"It used to be a freak occurrence, and now this is not," Lorentz told the outlet. "This is commonplace. This is a fact of life. This is the world that we live in right now and that we are raising our kids in, and it is not OK."

At least seven people were killed and dozens injured in the shooting. Harrowing accounts of what happened during the shooting have emerged, with people recounting how they ran for their lives and tried to hide their loved ones from the gunman.

A doctor who attended the parade recalled seeing victims with "horrific injuries."

"You saw blood everywhere. You saw bodies down. You saw people screaming. You saw massive amounts of blood in the people who were gone," Dr. David Baum told NBC Chicago. "There were a lot of bodies."

The 21-year-old shooting suspect was arrested at 6.30 p.m. on Monday, following a manhunt.