Is this how I die? – CNN

I am perfectly still. I can't make a sound. My back is in spasm. I huddle with three others behind a bathroom door. Locked inside a Capitol office suite. We are hiding from the source of the roar filtering through the walls. The voices of thousands who want to hurt me.

As a journalist, I've been behind the lens for too many mass casualty events. Am I going to be in one now? Sitting on the floor with my back leaning against the toilet, tile cool through my clothes. Lights are switched off and there are blinds on the window, but even in the cold, overcast day it's bright enough to see.

A colleague gingerly leans over the sill to catch a glimpse of the mob three floors down on the Capitol plaza. He twists the blinds shut with a delicate touch. Quietly. Gasps from a colleague shift my attention. She presses three fingers to her forehead, eyes squeezing shut, a grimace on her face. Crying, but no tears.

Slam. Slam. "Let's f---ing do this"! They're at the door. This. Is. It.

The walls don't feel like protection. They might as well be made of paper. It sounds like these people are in the room with us. They scream and curse. It's deafening. We hear people trying to burst through the door and enter the office suite.

I hear my producer. "Oh God." The adrenaline surge leaves my muscles heavy. My heart beats in my ears. A knot in my stomach holds me down.

I feel like I am finally in the shoes of any number of shooting survivors I've interviewed over the years. Their faces, their experiences blur in my mind. This type of fear is something I never understood as a journalist; to fully grasp it, it must be experienced.

Time stands still.

I think of Parkland. I was there, under the Sawgrass Expressway for weeks -- working, then, for another news organization -- after 17 were shot dead at nearby Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. I talked to the survivors. I got to know parents and friends of the teens whose young lives were cut short. Now, I'm in their place. Those kids hiding in a bathroom, praying that the footsteps would move away.

I see their tears. I hear their sobs. I think of the Pulse nightclub mass shooting in 2016. The call came in the middle of the night. I remember speeding up the Florida turnpike to a place where I used to work in college. Those caught in the nightclub hid in a cramped bathroom too. The horror bubbles over now, it seeps out my eyes, down my cheeks.

The day -- January 6 -- started like any other. The commute to work normal (except for so many Trump flags): 395 to D street to lot 16. The wheels on my cart, loaded with TV gear in bulky black cases, squeak on my push up the steep grade to the Dirksen Senate Office Building. I text my producer, asking if I'll have to get close to the Trump protesters today. I was assigned as "chase crew."

"Nope. We're indoor cats today." A relief. As I push down the tunnel toward the Capitol building, colleagues chatter about the influx of Trump protesters, mainly mask-less. I'll be happy to avoid getting breathed on during Covid -- only will be racing after senators for comment as they proceed in certifying Joe Biden's electoral victory.

I emerge from the tunnel and receive a text. My producer. I need a live shot out any window I can find. I look out from the 3rd floor behind the Senate gallery and see a large sea of red -- clothes, hats, flags. I see a thin bike rack barely holding a mass of people back from the east front plaza.

OK. This is something.

I point my camera out the window as the dam breaks. A flood of people swells and swarms over a barricade and toward the building. It's like a sea of fish escaping a net -- or an invasion.

My fingers can't call the assignment desk fast enough. I get through to the DC line, they tell me I have to call Atlanta. I call CNN headquarters in Atlanta ...Ok. Atlanta sees it. My boss is calling. They need this, NOW.

Other journalists join me looking out the window. There's talk of being evacuated from the third floor hallway to inside the chamber "if they get in." I can hear my producer screaming down the hall. "They've breached!"

Suddenly, a normal day on the Hill is anything but. Police scanner radios in the hallway squawk, "Stay away from exterior windows and doors." I'm defiant, not moving. I keep my eye focused on the crowd from above. I sense running and movement behind me.

My producer is pacing and swearing. My best guess: She's torn between the increasing danger and attempting to organize reporting. My focus is outside. The roar builds.

"Josh?... Josh! ... JOSH!" My producer pleads with me, she peers around the corner.

"What?" I have the shot. I don't understand.

Is this happening? I freeze for what seems like an eternity. I grab my camera off the window and sprint toward her voice. Tunnel vision. It's quiet. I can feel my Nikes grip the old carpet as I round the corner. I see a man at the end of the hall waving me in a door. Jolt, click. We're locked inside.

I often come back to this next moment in my dreams. The sound of shoulders slamming repeatedly into the door. Crash. Bang. "Let's f---ing do this!"

What would it be like to be taken? Would I fight? Would I go passive? Would they kill me? What does it feel like to be beaten and trampled? What does it feel like to have a bullet go through my head? I wrestle with this in my sleep. Sometimes I dream my children are with me and I have to protect them.

The door held. Time seemed to pass. Hours seemed like seconds. It got quiet.

Police came to escort us out. On the trip through the Capitol basement, I smelled tear gas. Hallways normally filled with business suits were now the front lines of war, a staging area for soldiers. Not the Capitol I recognize.

I've focused my lens on any number of terrible news situations over the years. In those moments, the lens protects me. It's work. Not this time. This time I felt the fear so many have tried to explain to me.

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Is this how I die? - CNN