My son and I witnessed the New Orleans terror attack. We won't let it deter us from visiting the city again.

• A man drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year's Day, killing 14 people.
• Ruth Chavez, 40, was there celebrating with her 17-year-old son. They narrowly escaped harm.
• She told BI she hoped the horrific attack wouldn't ruin their beloved mom-and-son tradition.

This as-told-to essay is based on an interview with Ruth Chavez, 40, who, along with her 17-year-old son Jonathan, witnessed the New Year's Day terrorist attack that killed 14 people in New Orleans. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

As mom and son, we've made it a tradition to go to New Orleans every year.

We've been to the city for three years running, and after our first visit, we felt completely comfortable and safe.

We've never felt like we were in danger at any time, except for our most recent night there, when, of course, the attack happened.

A yearly tradition

We don't really go out in Albuquerque, New Mexico — our home.

Our city is not very safe. We have a very high crime rate, so that's always my biggest fear with my son, a high school senior.

I try to avoid him going out anywhere in Albuquerque because he's young, and I feel like I can't protect him.

That's why we always go out of town to have fun. I take him on these trips to New Orleans to have a good time without worrying.

This time, we planned the trip seven months in advance. We were in town for the New Orleans Saints and Las Vegas Raiders game.

My son, Jonathan, is a diehard Saints fan, and the Raiders are my team. We were just having the best time on our vacation.

New Year's Eve in the French Quarter

On our last night, we were hanging out on Bourbon Street, enjoying the music and the people, and having a great time.

But my son is 17, so he couldn't go to most places.

We were winding down for the night when we happened to walk into this one bar, which had its doors open all the way around. We were in there for probably a few minutes when we started hearing gunshots.

The bar's owners shut all the doors and told everybody to get down. We stayed in there, taking cover for about five minutes.

Then we walked out the door and saw the truck had crashed right in front of where we were.

Several people were on the ground. People were trying to save them, but there was no saving them.

We thought it was just a car crash — we didn't instantly know the magnitude of what had happened.

I was just watching this kid — a similar age to my son — die.

That could have easily been us if we had been on that street just a second longer.

A lucky escape

People were screaming, and nobody knew what was going on.

Then, weirdly, it got kind of quiet. Everything kind of settled down.

The police came and started putting up tape and making us leave.

Bourbon Street was very quiet — all you could hear was the sirens.

If that bar hadn't let us in, we would've been on that street, in the direct path of that truck. We would have been either run over or shot.

We were very, very lucky.

New Orleans, the city we love

Usually, on our last day, we do some shopping and take pictures. We're so pumped from having had so much fun.

This time, we didn't do any of that.

We just felt grief in our hearts, and it was just an awful feeling. We didn't even want to eat. We were just ready to go.

As bad as it was, I can't begin to say how thankful I am that we could leave New Orleans and get on that plane.

I got emotional thinking that these other people wouldn't get that chance. They won't be able to go home to their families the way we were able to.

Do we go back?

We were planning to go to a game next year in New Orleans, but now we're unsure about that.

I don't want to say we won't go for the game, but it's too soon to say we definitely will. We still haven't even processed everything.

Jonathan and I were talking about whether we would go back to the city again, and I said I would hate for that one person who was so evil and who did such a horrific act to ruin it for us.

So, we plan on returning to New Orleans at some point and not letting this deter us from the city we love.