A Capitol security officer has described the shocking scenes she witnessed trying to protect the building against pro-Donald Trump rioters fired up on false allegations the election had been rigged.
Caroline Edwards sustained a brain injury during the attack while trying to protect the building along with Capitol Hill Police Officer Brian Sicknick who later died.
Giving powerful testimony in front of the bi-partisan committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack, Ms Edwards compared the brutal violence she saw to a “war scene”.
She spoke during the first televised hearing, in which committee’s members accused the former president of encouraging the violence.
Five people died in the riot, including a Capitol police officer, with the threat of violence explicit in much of the build up.
Committee chairman Bennie Thompson emphasised in his opening statement that he held Trump personally responsible for the attack.
He accused the then-president of "trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power".
Ms Edwards said: “I can remember my breath catching in my throat because what I saw was a war scene”.
Ms Edwards continued: “Officers on the ground. They were bleeding, on the ground, throwing up”.
“I was slipping in people’s blood,” she added. “I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw.
"Never in my wildest dreams that as a police officer would I find myself in the middle of a battle."
She described the moments that led to her injury and Officer Sicknick getting sprayed with some kind of gas, reports DailyMail.
She recalled that a group of protesters, led by one of the top Proud Boys Joseph Biggs, had gathered outside the Capitol Building and started getting more and more violent.
"I turned to my sergeant and I stated the understatement of the century. I said, 'Sarge, I think we're going to need a few more people down here,'" she testified.
She said Biggs and another Proud Boy, Ryan Samsel, ripped the first barricade down and approached the officers' bike racks.
Ms Edwards and other Capitol Police officers braced the bike racks.
"I felt the bike rack come on top of my head and I was pushed backwards and my foot caught the stair behind me and my chin hit the handrail and then - at that point I blacked out - but the back of my head clipped the concrete stairs behind me," she said.
Ms Edwards partially recovered and went back to duty, trying to hold the West Front of the Capitol.
She continued: "So after awhile I got back on the line, it was on the House side of the lower west stairs ... and officer Sicknick was behind me."
"All of the sudden I see movement to the left of me, and it was officer Sicknick with his head in his hands and he was ghostly pale," she said.
"Which I figured at that point he had been sprayed, and I was concerned. My cop alarm bells went off."
Sicknick died the next day. His family members were in the audience Thursday night with his wife sharing a tender moment with Ms Edwards.
"And so I looked back to see what had happened, what had hit him and that's when I got sprayed in the eyes as well," she said.
"I was taken to be decontaminated by another officer but we didn't get a chance because I got tear-gassed."
Video footage appearing to be the moment Ms Edwards was sprayed, was played during the hearing.
