‘We fled down the fire escape’

American nationals Joseph Ernstein, 67, and his wife Marilyn spent a nerve-wracking Wednesday night in their fourth-floor room of the Taj Mahal Hotel before escaping down the fire escape on Thursday morning.

In India, for a month-long vacation, the couple landed in Mumbai just two days ago, along two dozen other tourists. “Mumbai was the last leg and some of the people on our tour left after the farewell cocktail party on Wednesday evening,” Ernstein, a retired accountant from Florida, told DNA. The couple, who were to leave for Chicago on an early morning flight on Thursday, went to bed at 9.30 pm, but were woken up at 11.15 pm by a call from the hotel management, asking them not to leave their room.

“We could hear explosions and gunfire. We were very scared. No one told us what was happening. News channels on television were blocked out and radio channels were not in English. Then we heard someone shouting for help. Though we did not step out of the room, it looked like someone had been shot and was calling for help,” Ernstein said.

At 3 am they called the hotel lobby, asking for their luggage to be taken down, but the hotel staff told them they could not leave the hotel. After that the house phone went dead. “By 9.30 am we stepped out with just our passports and some money. We managed to get to the first-floor balcony and climbed down the fire escape,” said the former accountant.

The couple’s luggage is still in the hotel. With no one to guide them, they are clueless about what to do next.