A former Hawaii emergency service employee who sent a false ballistic missile alert in January said on Friday that he felt very bad about causing panic and was completely crushed after the incident.
At the same time, the man noted that he was "100% sure" at the time that the attack was real, the Guardian reported.
The emergency worker, who spoke to the newspaper on condition of anonymity amid receiving numerous threats over the last few weeks, said that an on-duty call that he got on 13 January did not sound like a military exercise.
READ MORE: Hawaii Emergency Management Chief Resigns Over False Missile Alert
"Immediately afterward, we find out it was a drill and I was devastated," the man said. "I still feel very badly about it. I felt sick afterward. It was like a body blow."
The man confessed that he couldn't properly eat and sleep after the incident.
"It's been hell for me the last couple weeks," he said.
On January, 13 an alert about an incoming ballistic missile sent people in Hawaii into panic for more than 30 minutes, until local officials managed to calm everyone down and announced that the signal had been sent by mistake.
Hawaii is well within range of ballistic missiles developed by North Korea, which has threatened to arm rockets with nuclear warheads to attack the United States.