A three-year-old girl was saved during the mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach after a bystander threw herself over the child to protect her from gunfire.
Wayne and Vanessa Miller said they were separated from their daughter, Gigi, when shots rang out at Bondi Beach on Saturday, according to Sky News Australia. The couple had been at the popular spot with their three children when the chaos began.
“Vanessa called and said: ‘Have you got Gigi?’, and I’m like, ‘I don’t’ … that’s when the absolute panic just set in,” Wayne told Sky News Australia.
Vanessa said she saw her daughter “dancing for a second and she was gone.”
“There were bullets all around me. All I can do is scream, ‘Where’s my little girl?’ A police officer [then] dragged me out … and he said, ‘Get down!’” she said. “I actually tried to grab the policeman’s gun and he grabbed me. I was ready to just get in there … I didn’t know what to do.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/bondi-shooting-121525-1-b7a10fe599224ffb8ae1071fd1235fd5.jpg)
Wayne said he began searching for Gigi as soon as he could.
“Eventually – it felt like hours — the gunshots stopped,” he said. “I just ran … I gave Capri to Vanessa … I went looking [for Gigi] … there was just blood and bodies everywhere.”
He said he ultimately spotted his daughter lying under a woman who had been shot while shielding her.
“She was wearing this pink skirt and I saw this lady lying on top of her; she had been shot,” Wayne told Sky News Australia. “She said, ‘I’ve got your daughter, I’ve been protecting her.’ Gigi was lying under her, petrified.”
Wayne said Gigi was covered in blood, terrifying him at first—until the woman reassured him it wasn’t the child’s.
“She was [covered] in blood. I saw the blood, I got the fright of my life. [The lady said], ‘Don’t worry that’s not her blood, that’s my blood,’ ” he said.
The woman—identified as Jess—was taken to the hospital, while Gigi was safely reunited with her family.
“I said [to her], ‘You’ve saved my daughter’s life. I’ll be indebted to you for the rest of my life,’ ” Wayne said.
On Dec. 14, two gunmen — who police said were father and son — opened fire on the crowd in Archer Park at Bondi Beach. People had gathered at the beach to attend the Jewish festival of Hanukkah by the Sea.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/bondi-shooting-tribute-121525-1-5972b99c05684bb990ef697c953a57a1.jpg)
At least 15 people were killed and 40 people injured, with victims’ ages ranging from 10 to 87 years old, BBC News, Sky News and Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported.
