In the wake of the cowardly massacre at Bondi, which targeted a Jewish Hanukkah festival, thousands of people have harrowing stories to tell. Amongst them were several surfers, who acted bravely to provide shelter from gunfire, first aid assistance and safe passage from the scene. Below are the stories of three surfers who answered the call to help on December 14.
18-year-old Freddie Carmody has just finished school and is currently Bondi’s most promising surfer. Only a few weeks ago Freddie made the quarter finals of the regional qualifier event at Newcastle. His charge through the rounds was finally stopped by the highly fancied Matteus Herdy.
On Sunday 14th December, Fred and good friend, Cooper Gee, were surfing a rip-bowl just to the south of the Bondi Pavilion when they heard what sounded like fireworks going off. They sensed something was amiss when they witnessed thousands of people stampeding across the beach. “We just saw pretty much the whole beach run across to the south end. It was pretty full-on,” recalls Freddie over the phone. “There would have been at least 5000 people… There was no one on the beach yelling out ‘there’s a shooter’ or anything… We just sort of guessed because you were seeing people kind of like jumping behind cars and hiding.”
As pandemonium broke out several people ran to the surf. “One girl who jumped straight into the water when it happened, she couldn’t swim at all,” explains Fred, who watched a nearby surfer rescue her. He indicated that many surfers assisted people who ran to the water.
When Fred and Cooper eventually walked up the beach one of the professional lifeguards gave them a thumbs up and said, “It’s all good they’ve got them.” The two friends still didn’t know exactly what he was referring to, but the scale of the incident became painfully apparent when they reached the beachside promenade. “We kind of walked pretty much straight into it… none of the ambulances were there when we walked up… we were just sort of pulled into the whole scene…”
Fred recalls looking around and being overwhelmed by what he saw. “There would have been at least more than 20 people just on the ground, lying in that stationary position… blood everywhere.”
Fred and Cooper didn’t have much time to contemplate the horrific scene as they were immediately called to action when they were recognised by one of the local surf club members. He said, “You boys can help out,” explains Fred, who soon found himself assisting a policeman with resuscitation on a victim. Fortunately, both Fred and Cooper had recently completed a refresher first aid course through North Bondi surf club. “We were holding people’s necks and legs while resusc’ was happening,” explains Fred. “One cop was like, ‘how many compressions is it?’ So we had to tell them… All that training and everything from the surf club definitely made a massive difference. If I didn’t have any of that … I would have just sort of felt really out of my depth.”
Fred maintains a brave tone as he details what happened to the victims he helped directly. “One guy, the cop just told us to leave, and then after about three minutes of compressions the ambos came and took over, and then we saw a towel get placed over him, so he didn’t make it. But the other two guys that we helped with were put on stretchers and taken to hospital. Not actually too sure what happened to them, but the fact that they got out of there still in some sort of okay condition was nice to know.”
Eventually the paramedics arrived on the scene and took over, from the likes of Fred and Cooper; passing surfers who had been thrust into a full-scale emergency situation. It was only then, that someone showed them on social media what had actually transpired with the two gunmen. “It was almost like hard to believe, because for the past half an hour, you were just helping, and you’ve been in the water, and then you come out and you finally found out what had happened.”
Walking across Campbell Parade, still numb from the experience, Fred and Cooper were called to assist one more time. “There was this one lady with a with a baby who had blood all over her, and we had to help her put her kid in the car…. She was shaking. … then she almost went straight over the railing… she had it in drive, instead of reverse… there was so much going on… people fully sort of forgot how to do things, which is fair enough.”
Speaking, a week after the incident, Fred suggests that perhaps his direct involvement had made it somehow easier to process the experience. “I feel like if we had just walked past and seen all these people lying on the floor bleeding, it would have been a lot worse. But I think because we were able to sort of actually help out a little bit… be able to put our hand up to, like, dive into it, it probably helped a bit more.”
Karim Moulay has lived in Bondi all his life. The lanky goofy footer developed something of a cult following during COVID for his quirky surf reports, which provided some much-needed comic relief in a difficult time.
Last Sunday Karim was with his brother and niece at the edge of the ill-fated Archer Park, when bullets started whizzing past. “People were falling over dead in front of us,” he explains in sombre tones. As Karim and his family ran to Karim’s nearby van; they rescued a Jewish couple and baby, and a mother with two children. “As we all jumped in the van, I realised a bullet had already passed through the front passenger window,” recalls Karim. With bullets continuing to fly the van didn’t feel safe and Karim ultimately made the decision to abandon the vehicle. Fortunately, all of the people with him were unharmed as they made a dash for safety to the north end of the beach.
After the incident it was difficult not to be haunted by what might have been. “My son usually sits in that front seat where the bullet hit and plays his Nintendo,” explains Karim. “If he was with me he probably would have been shot.”
Maha Metwally is a much-loved, local primary school teacher, famous for her marathon foamy sessions in the school holidays. Maha was enjoying a late Sunday surf when she heard the gunfire. “I was actually going across the face of a wave, and it was so loud I thought it was fireworks…. And then the sound became really erratic, and everyone started to bolt like lightning… I just started paddling further out to sea.” Later there were recollections from others of bullets splashing into the water at North Bondi, which was directly in the line of fire. A surf instructor from ‘Lets Go Surfing’ reportedly had to haul a class off the beach and run for cover.
“I put the board on top of my head and then tried to paddle out like a turtle with a shell,” Explains Maha. And then I heard a voice calling, ‘teacher, teacher’ and I turned around. It was one of my ex-students with two other young 12–13-year-old boys who also used to go to my school… At this point we were way out the back, and the kids were clearly struggling so I put them on my board. Then we saved two more children who held onto the edge of my board…. Two of them were balling and kept saying it was their parents’ van on the beach. Eventually another surfer helped me and after about half an hour we finally made our way to the Ben Buckler Point boat ramp where we sat and waited for an hour as the police went over us in the helicopters and told everyone to clear the area except for emergency services. One of the boys that I saved happened to be my colleague’s son, so he borrowed a phone called his mother and she came to pick us up. We called the parents who had the van and they came sprinting up.” Five days later Maha returned to collect her board, which had been locked inside the garage of someone who had agreed to stash it on the day.
A week later, people are back surfing and the mass paddle out last Friday morning was an impressive show of community strength. The eternal roll of the waves will never wash away the memories of Bondi’s darkest hour, but perhaps a few good rides can at least help restore faith in the Australian way of life we all cherish.
Tracks offers its support to the Jewish community, the victims’ families and all affected by the terrible events of December 14.
