( CNN ) -- Cynde Strand , CNN 's Beijing camerawoman during the crisis , had spent night after night in Tiananmen Square , amidst a heap of trash , leaning on her ladder , her head over her camera , just waiting for something to happen . Cynde Strand : `` I just knew this was the day it was going to end . '' If she was really exhausted , she 'd lay plastic over the trash and cat-nap on that . `` Every night I would stay there , '' she recalled . `` Every night there 'd be rumors that the troops were coming , or they were n't coming . And then there were all those kids we had gotten to know , '' she said about the demonstrators . `` Some days I 'd start around 5 and just stay the whole night , '' she said . `` The sun would come up and I would just ache . But I knew I wanted to be there when it happened . '' She and Mike Chinoy , both based in Beijing and both keen watchers of the Chinese leadership , shared the feeling that the situation was going to end badly . The Chinese had been deeply embarrassed by the demonstrators during the visit of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev , they reasoned , and the students were still occupying Tiananmen Square , although their numbers had dwindled . See photos of the CNN team in Tiananmen Square in 1989 » . In their minds , the Chinese leadership just would not stand for that . And Strand had a feeling that whatever was going to happen was going to happen at night , when energy levels were low . `` That Saturday ( June 3 ) , I just knew this was the day it was going to end , '' she said . `` That peaceful people-power picnic sit-in was gone . There was anger , rock-throwing behind the Great Hall of the People . The tension was much higher . '' And then Strand and her team got word of troops coming towards the giant square . And then kids started running into one side of the square with bodies . `` I got everybody together and said , 'okay , this is it , ' '' she recalled . `` 'If you do n't want to stay , you can go . You do n't have to stay here with me , but you have to leave now . ' '' She and soundman Kit Swartz stayed in the square for that entire historic night , determined to witness history . `` Bullets were whizzing overhead and then about 3 or 4 in the morning , they turned all the lights off , '' she said . `` Troops started pouring out of Mao 's mausoleum , different troops came out from under Mao 's portrait . Tanks moved in . By early morning , they had taken over the square and crushed that tent city . '' Strand did n't get to film much that overnight of June 4 . It was dark , she and Swartz took shelter behind public bathrooms for awhile , and the most dramatic images she had managed to film had gone with producer Donna Liu back to the CNN bureau . Strand had no idea what had happened to the tapes . And no one at CNN knew what had happened to her and Kit . Her walkie-talkie battery was long dead and nobody had cellphones then . From CNN 's base at the Beijing Hotel , the square , she knew , `` looked like hell , with buses on fire , APCs [ armed personnel carriers ] on fire and the Goddess of Democracy statue backlit by the fires burning on the road . '' Daytime broke . Chinese troops controlled the square . Strand and Swartz needed to get back to the CNN bureau . They flagged down a flat-bed rickshaw driver , who pedaled them and their gear to the Beijing Hotel . As they arrived , journalists leaned out of the hotel windows , begging to hear what had happened overnight . She walked into the CNN bureau . She and Chinoy looked at each other . She could see the palpable relief on his face . `` It was one of those moments , '' she recalled , `` just a deep connection between us . It said : 'We knew it was coming , and we survived it . ' '' Cynde Strand is now Director of Coverage at CNN International , based in Atlanta . Daniela Deane was a chief sub-editor at the Reuters news agency in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen crisis .
Camerawoman Cynde Strand had spent night after night in Tiananmen Square . As troops arrived , she `` got everybody together and said , okay , this is it '' `` Bullets were whizzing overhead ... then they turned the lights off '' She and soundman Kit Swartz stayed in the square for the entire historic night .