Kimberly Blakey said she and her 14-year-old daughter were among the crowd trying to flee the parking lot of the Allen, Texas, outlet mall during the attack Saturday.
“The shooting happened over and over and over again. It was nonstop,” she said.
In her haste to get away, Blakey initially drove toward the sound of gunshots, before her daughter told her to turn around. But as she drove toward the exit, she said, they got stuck behind a scrum of other cars trying to do the same.
That’s when she felt her car get hit twice by gunfire.
“I told my daughter to get down. She did, and I could hear her start praying,” Blakey said.
The pair was able to get out of the parking lot and didn’t stop until they reached home, even when Blakey realized her car’s flat-tire warning light had come on.
“We were on a mission to get out of there,” she said.
The shooting was deeply disturbing, said Fatburger employee Tiffany Gipson, who told CNN she and other customers hid in a hallway behind their mall restaurant.
“I’ve never witnessed anything like this. This is very traumatic for me and I already suffer from anxiety and seizures,” Gipson said.
CNN’s Josh Campbell, Ashley Killough, Keith Allen, Andy Rose, Paradise Afshar, John Miller, Phil Gast and Emma Tucker contributed to this report.
