News of the detonation of a bomb at a stadium on the outskirts of Paris reached Ciara Skiles' dinner table via text message.

        The incident, which she described as surreal, motivated the group of seven celebrating her brother's 21st birthday to end the party after finishing their meal.

        Shortly after 11 p.m. local time Friday Nov. 13, people at the table, which included people of Dutch, British and French descent, received texts reporting that gunmen attacked several cafes in a neighboring district.

        According to Skiles, a friend informed them that the restaurant they had chosen - a few blocks from the Moulin Rouge, the famous cabaret founded in 1889 and rebuilt in 1915 - was supposed to be a target.

        Though no guns or sirens were audible, she shifted into crisis mode.  Skiles, at age 28 the oldest person in the group, stared at her phone waiting for verification that the taxi she ordered was on its way.

        "I kept hitting refresh," said Skiles, who grew up in Schwenksville and graduated from Perkiomen Valley High School in 2005. "It probably only took 30 seconds to get confirmation, but it seemed like an hour. So many things were running through my head. They were the most tense moments of my life."

        Both Uber cars arrived near the cafe at approximately 11:24 p.m. Skiles, relying on the emergency training she received as a retail sales manager, ran back and forth along the sidewalk between the cars barking instructions.

        She decided that at least one French speaker ride in each car. Skiles also screamed at her brother, Cameron Mascia, to take a different car than her.

        "My brother was crying," Skiles said. "I was trying to calm everyone down. I was in crisis mode."

        During the 10-minute ride back to the private apartment where Skiles and her brother were staying, she sent text messages to her mother, stepmother and friends updating the situation and assuring them she was safe.

         According to Skiles the driver, a dark-skinned man named Belmehel, who she surmised was Muslim, told the passengers he witnessed some of the shooting at cafes in the 10th District, and that he continued to drive to help as many people as possible get home safely.

        "Every time we drove past a monument I held my breath," she said. "I was concerned that there were terrorists around every corner."

        Skiles, Mascia and the other five attendees to his birthday party spent the night following a flurry of terrorist attacks on the French capital in a small secluded apartment atop a grocery store in city's 6th District, across the Seine River.

        The Islamic State group claimed credit for the gun and bomb attacks on a stadium, a concert hall and Paris cafes that killed 129 and wounded 350 people, 99 of them seriously, according to the Associated Press.

        On Sunday, as Skiles left the country she felt an overwhelming police presence at the airport. Security officials confiscated the folding pocket spork she purchased for her husband at a mall underneath the Louvre.

        "I never felt so safe amid so many guns," she said. "I appreciate their attention to detail. I didn't want to leave that place."

        Skiles didn't relax until her return flight touched down, when the cabin filled with applause. She could feel a collective sigh of relief.

        "In terms of personal danger, I've led a delightfully boring life," Skiles said. "I'd like to keep it that way."