By: E&P Staff Chicago Tribune Dining Editor Judy Hevrdejs narrowly escaped last week's violence in Mumbai. In Sunday's editions, she described running through the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, just a few steps ahead of the terrorists and the sound of their gunfire.
Hevrdejs said in a story by Tribune reporter Ted Gregory that she had accompanied her husband to a business conference in the Indian city. They were sitting in a courtyard by the hotel pool about 9:45 last Wednesday when they heard popping sounds. They were reassured that, this being wedding season in India, the noise was no doubt fireworks.
It wasn't.
"Then all of the sudden, the pops got louder and we heard screaming," Hevrdejs told the Tribune. "Then a guy came sprinting from the lobby."
She and her husband and another group of guests ran from the courtyard to a basement corridor, and then to some above-ground meeting rooms -- where explosions were erupting right outside the window.
Hours after midnight, the group was led by hotel staff into the kitchen and out a service exit, as gunfire sounded just a few feet behind them, Hevrdejs said.
"People started running and once we got outside, we heard more explosions," she said. "They just kept yelling 'run, run, run.' We ran a good four blocks. All I remember is that I thought I couldn't breathe any longer."
In an open street, a bus took them to the Taj President Hotel, where they stayed until Friday, when they were taken to U.S. Consulate and then, by 4 a.m. Saturday, to Mumbai airport.
The dining editor and husband arrived home in Chicago Saturday afternoon.
"I may be sitting here in the world's ugliest pair of men's sweat pants," Hevrdejs said Saturday night, "but I'm home. All that stuff I left in the hotel room doesn't seem to amount to much."
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