Gunshot victim back with family
When the two bullets cut clean through his left calf, Feroze Mohammed Ditta felt nothing.
He lay in the doorway, halfin, half out of the Al Noor Mosque. Pinned by 20 bodies, listening to the killer come back for a second go, he thought, ‘‘Today is the day I meet my maker’’.
But his maker had other plans.
Sitting on his couch at home, his bandaged and cast-bound leg propped up, a weary Ditta relished being back with his wife and two daughters in familiar suburban surrounds, where the most threatening noise was the barking dog across the road.
The 51-year-old Mainfreight owner-operator was one of the first two seriously injured shooting victims to be discharged from hospital on Monday afternoon.
‘‘Two gunshot wounds to left lower leg . . . no bony injury seen,’’ was the sanitised description in the discharge notes. That’s not how Ditta remembered it.
He was at the Masjid Al Noor on Deans Ave for Friday prayers, as he was every Friday. Deep inside the main prayer hall, he didn’t see much. But he heard the gunshots. Pap, pap, pap – like fireworks that wouldn’t let up. He ran to the emergency side exit, smashed the glass and tried to go through it.
‘‘It was like a stampede of people trying to get out. I was pushed over and there was a whole heap of people that fell on top of me. I just lay there, couldn’t move. I heard gunfire.
‘‘He came in. He fired all his rounds, then it went quiet for a while . . . I lay on the floor, waiting for him to come through. He came back again and had another go at shooting. I could hear it, it was so close. I thought, ‘today is the day I meet my maker’.’’
Then after about 10 minutes, it went all quiet. That was when he realised he’d been shot. Most of his body was shielded by the mountain of unmoving humanity on top of him, but his leg must have been exposed. As the shooter fired randomly, he was hit twice. At first, he felt nothing. But after 10 minutes, the pain became excruciating.
‘‘That’s when I dragged myself from underneath the pile. There were just bodies everywhere, some were screaming for help. Just blood everywhere. It was just an awful sight.’’
Nobody responded so he assumed they were all dead. Unable to stand, he dragged himself out onto the road. There, a good samaritan in a ute was waiting. He threw out his tools and bundled Ditta into the back seat, along with two others, and drove them to the hospital.
At the emergency department, it was chaos but the doctors and nurses were amazing. They cleaned his
wounds, where the two bullets had entered and exited his calf. They doped him up on morphine for the pain. And then he waited.
Alongside the 50 people who lost their lives at Al Noor and Linwood mosques, 48 injured patients flooded Christchurch Hospital. Of those, 11 were in a critical condition. Ditta was well down the priority list.
The surgeons operated at 8am on Saturday, removing the shrapnel and grafting skin from his thigh to repair the bullet holes. Twelve patients with minor injuries were discharged on Friday night, but 36 remained. Ward 19 became a press of anxious love as visitors swarmed to visit the injured.
The care was fantastic, but Ditta was pleased to be told he was one of two patients well enough to go home on Monday afternoon. There were no special meals or celebrations – just a relieved welcome from his family, morphine and sleep.
The wound will heal, they told him, but he could be out of action for three to four months. He is lucky – his work can continue, he will just have to hire drivers.
Of the 50 lives lost, some were their family’s sole breadwinner. Others were elders, who were the backbone of the community.
‘‘Nothing replaces the wisdom they had, the knowledge they had,’’ Ditta said. ‘‘They were our go-to people in times of need . . .
‘‘I’m just thinking of the others who are not here with us today, and people who are going through trauma and pain. I will be praying for them.’’
While he can manage the physical pain, the emotional damage is more difficult to repair.
‘‘At night I lay down, I still hear screams. I still hear the gunfire. The noises from people screaming. That’s still there.’’
But the attack will change nothing about Ditta’s feelings for Christchurch or New Zealand. He moved to New Zealand from Fiji more than 30 years ago, after the first coup. His two daughters – 21-year-old Sana and 25-year-old Zahra – have grown up here.
They’re both teachers. The support the family has received has been unbelievable.
And he will be back at Friday prayers when he can.
‘‘Our faith is very strong. The actions of one person is not going to deter us, or the community.
‘‘It will make us stronger. We will build that mosque again. We won’t let him win.’’