New Year’s reveler witnessed ‘twisted, horribly disfigured’ bodies strewn on sidewalk: ‘Dead right in front of us’

New Year’s revelers are giving harrowing accounts of “twisted” and “horribly disfigured” bodies “laid up next to garbage cans” after a terrorist plowed his truck into crowds on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street.

Jimmy Cothran, who sought cover in a nightclub as the carnage unfolded, told NBC News he counted eight bodies on the street in the immediate aftermath.

“Dead right in front of us was someone’s mother, twisted, obviously deceased,” he said.

“One man, deceased, had tire tracks across his back and when someone turned him over he had tire tracks across his stomach and was clearly crushed.”

“A little girl that we had seen dancing as we were walking up the street was as flat as a pillow,” he continued.

“It just kept going. Every eye shot — body, body, body, body. It was unbelievable.”

Live updates: Everything to know about the New Orleans ‘terror attack’

Another witness, who only identified himself as Paul S., told ABC that he heard the sound of gunfire from his hotel room.

“We heard a ‘pop, pop, pop, pop’ sound, followed by a sound that sounded like fireworks going off, like a big firework all at once, and it turned out that was the crash,” he told the outlet.

Paul S. stepped out onto the hotel balcony, where he saw Bourbon Street “completely empty except for the bodies on the ground.”

“There’s litter all over the sidewalks, and then there were bodies laid up next to garbage cans and people rushing to give aid,” he said.

Parsons, 18, told CNN he was partying on Bourbon Street with friends when he heard the “screech of tires” and then saw a truck “just barreling down the street.”

“Real-life horror movie, everything the car is hitting, it’s getting thrown. It’s getting thrown up into the air and away and just under the car,” he said. 

His group ducked for cover in a space between two bars. When he emerged from his hiding place, he said he saw one of his friends, a woman, lying in the street, badly injured but alive.

Farther down, there were “bodies littered throughout the entire street,” he added.

Parsons said he doesn’t know where emergency crews took his injured friend and doesn’t know her condition.

Police said the suspected attacker drove his truck through an intersection at the south end of Bourbon Street — a high-traffic spot crammed with nightclubs and strip clubs where thousands of partiers gather on holiday and weekend nights.

Normally, there would have been steel barriers placed in the intersection to prevent accidents and acts of violence, but they had been removed a few weeks prior, according to NOLA.com.

The city was in the process of replacing them ahead of the upcoming Super Bowl, which will be held in New Orleans.

But Bob Simms, who previously oversaw security projects for the French Quarter Management District, said even if those barriers had been in place, they may not have stopped the truck from smashing into the crowd.

“[The old barriers] were very ineffective. The track was always full of crap; beads and doubloons and God knows what else. Not the best idea,” Simms told NOLA.com.