Pearlman recounted seeing attendees "sitting, ducking under their tables," which immediately made him realize that "there was some kind of violent confrontation." At first, he even thought it was an explosion: "I thought there was a bomb by the way everyone was heading towards a table."
The mentalist described the reaction amid the chaos: "We crawled. We exited the room behind the curtains as far as we could, until we felt safe." He later explained that they managed to reach the backstage area, where the presence of "many armed people" gave him a sense of security.
During those moments of uncertainty, Pearlman expressed his concern for his wife, who was among the audience, and for his friends, exacerbated because "the phones were not working." They also did not know the status of the President and the First Lady: "We didn't know if they had been shot. When he fell, I didn't know exactly what had happened."