My mummy texted saying would you not come home? But I said no, this could have happened anywhere
AN Irish woman has spoken about her terrifying experience of being locked in a shop as the Sydney shopping centre took place on Saturday.
But Beth Hassan, from Derry, who was working in a shoe shop in Westfield Bondi Junction when six people were fatally stabbed by Joel Cauchi, said the attack “could have happened anywhere”.
Beth said: “This week I have been homesick but the last thing you want is your parents worrying. My mummy texted me saying ‘Would you not think of coming home?’ and I was like ‘No, this could’ve happened anywhere’.”
Just after 3pm, the 40-year-old man attacked shoppers with a large knife, killing five women, one man, and injuring a nine-month-old baby among 11 others before he was shot and killed by a police officer.
When Ms Hassan returned to work from her break at 3.10pm, she didn’t realise anything was wrong until she heard gunshots 15 minutes later.
She said: “At the time I didn’t know they were gunshots until I heard everyone screaming and then everyone ran past the shop into the store opposite us.
“Two of the guys I work with ran to get the shutters closed, but the shutters are so hard you have to proper pull them, and then there’s two locks. I could see them stressing and it was almost scarier looking at them trying to get them closed because at this time we still didn’t know what was going on, as soon as you hear three gunshots you just assume there’s going to be loads more after that.”
The 27-year-old and her co-workers then huddled themselves and two customers at the back of their store, where they waited for around 15 minutes before being allowed to leave.
Beth said: “The emergency alarms were going off and on the intercom it announced for everyone to stay where they are and close the tills.
EVACUATED
“We were still out the back and I was trying to message my friend but none of the messages were sending.
“Then they had another announcement to say that we could get everyone evacuated, this was one of the scariest points because we had to open the shutter and there were police everywhere at our level.”
Ms Hassan said she was terrified to leave the building, as she was the first person to go down one of the emergency exits.
She said: “I went first and pushed the door open and we still didn’t know what was going on so I was thinking, ‘What if there are people at the other side of this?’
“We had no idea where we were going and the emergency exit was like a spiral.
“You couldn’t see what was around the corner, so it took us a few minutes to actually get out of the building, but we
finally got out.” Ms Hassan said she is “so grateful” that she didn’t see anyone who was injured, but it was heartbreaking to see other shoppers so terrified.
She said: “We got outside and there were four helicopters, police everywhere, and then [other officers] jumped out of their cars with their helmets and guns and the whole place was on lockdown, we couldn’t move out of the area for a little bit. There were people crying and stuff, there was a pregnant lady in hysterics and other girls crying on the phone, so that was quite sad to see.” The 27-year-old said she feels incredibly lucky, as she re-entered the shopping centre after her lunch break at the same time the killer did.
She said: “It’s one of those things of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I keep thinking that he was reported to have gone into Westfield at 10 past three and that’s when I went in off my break so I just keep thinking imagine I had gone in a different door or went a different way.
“I’m so grateful all of us workers were in the store at the same time because we don’t have toilets so we have to go into the public toilets. I’m so glad nobody was on their own when it happened.” The horrific incident occurred at Bondi Junction in the east of Sydney.
The suburb, along with surrounding areas Randwick, Coogee, and Clovelly has a massive Irish community.
With more than 21,000 young Irish people having been granted a Working Holiday Visa last year, the seaside towns are becoming increasingly popular for expats.
Beth, who has been living in Sydney for eight months, said it doesn’t put her off remaining in Australia.
She said: “Something like this could have happened anywhere.”