2024: WBJ

You never forget the first time you hear gunshots, nor the immediate fight of flight response. ?

About a minute before that, a friend and I were walking out of David Jones Food Hall at Westfield Bondi Junction, in what felt like a normal day.?

As we turned right, and onto the escalator, I saw a group of about eight people scurrying by just below.

No screaming. No warning. No sense of panic.

Must be running late for a bus or train I thought, but it was odd enough for me to notice.

We reached the landing and walked across to the next set of escalators, when, what may have been a mother and toddler rushed by us, with a hurried look of purpose on her face.

Again, odd, but no screaming. No warning. No sense of panic.

As we headed left at the end of the escalator on level three, my mate noticed there seemed to be enough of a commotion and what I can only describe as a strange vibe, to prompt us to ask the information desk attendant there, what was going on.?

“Someone’s been stabbed,” she said in a calm manner.

A second later.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

It was loud, echoed, and felt very close.

I distinctly remember looking at my friend, saying, “That’s a gun”, shock running through my body, “Run!”

We were near the exit which spills into the mall, so we bolted in that directon, my hand smashing into a bollard in the scramble, phone flying out of my hand.

Picking it up, my instinct was to call the SBS newsroom to quickly tell my colleagues what I just heard, as we were running down Bondi Junction mall.

When we felt like we were far down the mall, we stopped, looked back and assessed.

We slowly walked back toward the shopping centre amid the confusion.

Very soon, one ambulance came, then another. Before we knew it, there were ten.

What had happened in there? How bad was the shooting?

We could still see people running across the glass bridge connecting the north and south buildings.

Was the incident still occurring?

With 14 per cent of charge left on my battery, I decided to film some material on my mobile phone and quickly go LIVE on Twitter/X detailing what I had experienced. I felt an obligation to get information out quickly, and accurately, before my phone lost power.

In that time, a knot in my tummy just grew tighter and tighter.

Ambulance and police cars continued to arrive, perhaps dozens.?

More people exited the centre, a lot of them, children, many in distress.

As we chatted to those around us, it slowly became apparent there may have been a stabbing incident in the shopping centre, and not a large shooting as I had feared.

With little official information, we stayed around until the evening to see if we could access our car, locked inside.

With my stomach still in a knot, we eventually walked home.

In the hours and days following, when details became a lot clearer, I felt this weird sense of guilt when I was asked to talk publicly about my experience. I didn’t want to because I was spared the graphic nature of what went inside the shopping centre.?

But my tummy was still in a knot, and stayed in a knot for weeks. The incident was constantly on replay in the newsroom and in the media. The shock of being so close, the fight or flight response, and then that period of time of not knowing what actually happened impacted me.

I reached out to some mental health professionals to try and help untangle that knotted feeling in my gut.

I acknowledge, that in no way compares to the grief others are still feeling after losing their loved ones, those that have been injured, and those directly involved.

I still haven’t been back to Bondi Junction, in part because I’ve since moved to a different part of the city closer to other retail amenities, but still hold empathy for those whose lives were changed that day.