Catherine Quinn, 21, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student from Wisconsin Rapids who is studying in France, had gone to a 5 p.m. Mass in the basilica with a friend Tuesday. She was lingering there, not expecting smoke from voting until at least 7 p.m., when she saw people running to the doors.
“We started seeing people scurrying and start to run, and I thought, ‘What’s going on? It’s only 6 o’clock.’ Then we started running, and everyone was running. We were standing right under the balcony. Since we couldn’t see anything, we ran to a side.