SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - Leslie Devaney was 3 days into her Puerto Vallarta vacation with her daughter when elevator doors opened to a terrifying scene. A day later, her primary mission was finding food.
On Sunday morning, Devaney and her daughter took the elevator from their 6th floor beach area vacation rental to the first floor lobby for a stroll into town for breakfast.
The elevator doors opened to chaos.
"All of a sudden hordes of people rush in the small elevator very quickly, and we can see that one of them is a security guard from the front desk. The door doesn't shut, and they're saying, 'Get up. Get up. Let’s go. Let's go. Let's get up!’" Devaney said.
Through glass, she saw a man in black outside pouring something onto a burning fuel tanker.
A local woman had also rushed from a different vehicle, into the elevator.
"A local woman had run in the elevator and was very upset, and my daughter said to her, 'Are you OK?'" Devaney said.
"And she goes, 'Yeah, that's my car out there that's burning. The cartel had pulled her out of the car, and then set the car on fire,'" Devaney said.
When asked what was going through her mind inside the elevator, Devaney did not hesitate.
"Fear for my life, and I thought, this is where I die," Devaney said.
Her panic lessened when the elevator doors became unstuck. Back in her condo, her view was a smoke-filled sky.
"I heard more explosions, the popping of fire. I heard gunshots,” Devaney said.
Devaney and her daughter were eventually evacuated to another complex before finally being allowed to return to the condo.
The next day, burned out vehicles stood feet from the lobby. Her daughter took photos of burned out vehicles and buildings as she rode in a taxi to the airport for one of the few flights that went out.
Devaney's flight home was canceled, but she was able to book a flight home on Thursday. With her fridge nearly empty, she went out looking for food. On Monday morning, a few markets had reopened, but she found long lines with only one customer allowed inside at a time.
"We were walking the streets and I found this little sign of this little home, and then they were selling cheese, so I bought a whole baggie of some queso. I figured, I have tortillas, and I can make quesadillas, I'm good for awhile," Devaney said.
Devaney, still a little anxious, plans to stick close to her rental until her flight.
"So, I'm happy I survived it, and I'm happy that they weren't going after tourists. That could have been a whole other dynamic where I had to fear that people were going to come in," Devaney said.
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