Bondi attack: the acts of bravery as the horror unfolded

When bullets started flying at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, strangers Wayne and Jessica found themselves in the same nightmare scenario. They couldn’t find their three-year-old children.

In the chaos, separately, they desperately scanned the green. The people who had gathered to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah screamed and ducked. Others ran. Some didn’t get very far.

The ten or so minutes that followed were the longest of their lives.

Wayne’s body acted as a human shield for his eldest daughter, but his mind was elsewhere: with his missing daughter, Gigi.

“We had to wait all that time for the shooting to stop. It seemed like an eternity,” he tells the BBC.

Unbeknownst to him, Jessica’s gaze had fallen on a little girl in a rainbow skirt, confused, scared, and alone, calling for her mom and dad.

He couldn’t protect his own son, so he would protect this one, he decided. He smothered Gigi’s body with his own and mouthed “I’ve got you” over and over again. They could feel the moment when a woman three feet away was shot and killed.

When the air finally fell silent, Wayne was convinced that Gigi was dead.

“I was searching through the blood and the bodies,” he says, increasingly excited.

“What I saw, no human being should ever see.”

Finally, she caught a glimpse of a familiar, colorful skirt and found her daughter, stained red, but oh well, still wrapped up under Jessica. They would soon find their son too, unharmed.

“She said she was just a mother and acted on maternal instincts,” Wayne says.

“[But] She is a superhero. “We will be indebted to her for the rest of our lives.”

It is one of the incredible tales of selflessness and bravery to emerge from one of Australia’s darkest days.

Declared a terrorist attack by police, it is the deadliest in Australian history. Dozens of people were injured and 15 people, including a 10-year-old girl, were killed by two gunmen, who police said were inspired by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).

Without a doubt, more people would have been harmed if it were not for Ahmed al Ahmed.

A Syrian-Australian shop owner, he was having coffee nearby when the massacre began. His father told BBC Arabic that Ahmed “saw the victims, the blood, the women and children lying in the street, and then he acted.”

Footage of the moment he jumped out from behind a car and grabbed the gun from one of the attackers immediately went viral. He was shot several times and could lose his arm.

Another man, Reuven Morrison, is also seen in the video throwing objects at the same attacker moments after Ahmed disarmed him.

Sheina Gutnik easily recognized her father in the images.

“He’s not someone who lies down. He’s someone who runs toward danger,” Gutnick told BBC partner CBS News.

He had jumped up the moment the shooting started, he said, and was throwing bricks at one of the gunmen before he was fatally shot.

“He fell fighting, protecting the people he loved the most.”

The first two victims of the assault, Boris and Sofia Gurman, were also captured on dash cam footage struggling with one of the men over his gun. When they did, he took another gun from the car he had just gotten out of and killed them.

“While nothing can ease the pain of losing Boris and Sofia, we feel an overwhelming sense of pride in their bravery and selflessness,” the couple’s family said in a statement.

“This sums up who Boris and Sofia were: people who instinctively and selflessly tried to help others.”

The list goes on.

Chaya, just 14 years old, was shot in the leg while shielding two small children from gunfire.

Jack Hibbert, a patrol officer who had been on the job for just four months, was hit in the head and shoulder but continued to help festival-goers until he was physically unable to, his family said. The 22-year-old will survive, but with life-changing injuries.

Lifeguard Jackson Doolan was photographed running from a neighboring beach during the attack, armed with critical medical supplies. He didn’t even stop to put on his shoes.

Others in Bondi ran from the beach towards the fire, their red and yellow lifeboards working overtime as stretchers. One lifeguard even dove back into the waves to save swimmers who had been panicked by the shooting.

Student Levi Xu, 31, told the BBC he felt he couldn’t shout for help as he didn’t want to draw attention to himself or risk his would-be saviors being attacked.

But lifeguard Rory Davey saw him and his friend struggling and dragged them back to shore.

“We stood up and wanted to thank him, but he had already returned to the sea to rescue other people,” says Mr Xu.

Thousands of Australians flocked to donate blood, eclipsing the previous record.

Officials say many off-duty first responders traveled to Bondi on Sunday, from up to two hours away, simply because they knew it was necessary.

Health care workers rushed to hospitals when they heard about the attack, whether they were on duty or not, facing unspeakable trauma to save lives.

“Normally, on Sunday nights, there are staff available to run an operating room. [at St Vincent’s Hospital]. There were eight operating at the same time,” said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

State Premier Chris Minns was also quick to praise the heroic acts of ordinary Australians.

“This is a terrible, wanton act of destructive violence. But there are still incredible people we have in Australia, and last night they showed their true colors,” he said, the day after the attack.

Wayne says he shudders to think what would have happened without people like Jessica and Ahmed.

When he speaks to the BBC, he has just attended the funeral of the gunmen’s youngest victim, 10-year-old Matilda.

“I was sitting at this funeral and I was thinking, with tears coming out of my eyes… I could have been in the front. Thank God I was in the back. I could have been my little girl.”

“There could have been much more devastation without the bravery of [these] people…someone who could run just walks in. Someone who might care about their own child cares for another child.

“That’s what the world needs more of.”

Additional reporting by Fan Wang.