NEED TO KNOW
- A three-year-old girl was protected from gunfire during the Bondi Beach shootings by the brave actions of a stranger
- Wayne and Vanessa Miller’s little girl, Gigi, got separated from them while the gunman was at large; they eventually located her lying under a woman who used her body as a shield
- “You’ve saved my daughter’s life. I’ll be indebted to you for the rest of my life,” Wayne told the woman
A three-year-old girl was saved by a brave bystander who shielded her from gunshots in the mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Wayne and Vanessa Miller were separated from their 3-year-old daughter Gigi when gunshots first broke out at Bondi Beach on Saturday, they told Sky News Australia.
The couple had visited the popular location with their three children when the shooting occurred. “Vanessa called and said: ‘Have you got Gigi?’, and I’m like, ‘I don’t’ … that’s when the absolute panic just set in,” said Wayne.
Vanessa said that 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 told Sky News Australia. “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.”
AP Photo/Mark Baker
Wayne went on a desperate search for Gigi soon after.
“Eventually – it felt like hours — the gunshots stopped,” he told Sky News Australia. “I just ran … I gave Capri to Vanessa … I went looking [for Gigi] … there was just blood and bodies everywhere.”
He said that he finally found her daughter shielded by a woman at the beach.
“She was wearing this pink skirt and I saw this lady lying on top of her; she had been shot,” he told Sky News Australia. “She said, ‘I’ve got your daughter, I’ve been protecting her.’ Gigi was lying under her, petrified.”
“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,’ ” said Wayne.
Saeed KHAN / AFP via Getty
The woman, named Jess, was transported to the hospital as Gigi was reunited with her parents.
“I said [to her], ‘You’ve saved my daughter’s life. I’ll be indebted to you for the rest of my life,’ ” Wayne told Sky News Australia.
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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.
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.
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