The mental scars Salim Toorabally suffered as a result of the Paris terror attacks 10 years ago still affect him today.

The images of what he saw that night at Stade de France remain indelible and have not been healed by time.

He was widely praised for his actions, including by then-President François Hollande and by the Interior Ministry, but Toorabally told The Associated Press on Wednesday in an interview, "I was seen more as a hero than as a victim, and it's this part of being a victim which is also inside me."

It was Toorabally who stopped Bilal Hadfi, one of the three militants who targeted the national stadium on November 13, 2015, when France was playing Germany in a soccer match, from entering the stadium at Gate L, where he was positioned as a stadium security agent.

Hadfi tried to get inside the stadium, despite not having a ticket, but was turned away by Toorabally who spotted Hadfi tying to tailgate another fan going through the turnstile.

As he continued working, Toorabally kept an eye on the 20-year-old Hadfi, who was stood a few meters away, until he slipped into the crowd.

Toorabally's warning worked as Hadfi was denied entry elsewhere.

He detonated his explosive vest later that evening.

"The explosion was very violent. I could feel the floor shaking," he said. "There was a burning smell rising into the air, different to the smell of smoke bombs. The explosion itself was truly very violent."

There were two explosions close together during the first half of the France-Germany game, with the first one going off at around 9:20 p.m.

Toorabally also tended to a wounded man that night and still carries the graphic image of the injured person’s leg.

"I took charge of him, I laid the individual down. He had like these (pieces of metal) bolts in his femoral (thigh)," Toorabally said.

"I looked at my hands, there was blood, I wasn't wearing gloves, and there were pieces of flesh in my hands."

Toorabally said he and other security agents were told not to inform fans that there had been an attack, to avoid panic and a possible stampede effect of fans trying to rush out of the stadium at the same time.

After the game had ended, fans were informed which exit gates to use and were urged to stay calm and that it was safe to use public transport.

Toorabally made his own way home that night by train.

But five days after the attack, he was summoned to a police station to help identify Hadfi as one of the bombers.

He says he was given no forewarning of what he was about to see as a photo from police forensics was placed in front of him.

"They showed me a photo, his head was separated from his body. The forensic police officer was holding his head up (to his body)," Toorabally said.

"I formally recognized him, that it was indeed the man who had been in front of me, who had stood there, who had been alive and who was now lifeless."

Toorabally remains haunted by the memory of Hadfi’s face and still suffers from heavy bouts of post-traumatic stress.

"The image is very violent, the image of someone whose head is separated from his body, and then there's the (memory) of the explosion, the odour of burning and of my hand filled with human flesh,” he recalled.

“These images have stayed in my mind for the past 10 years."

AP Video by Alexander Turnbull