Gunshot victim and the good samaritan in the red ute seal lifelong friendship
Driving to a job and talking to his pregnant wife Nicole on speakerphone, Lance Bradford noticed strange scenes on Deans Ave.
‘‘There’s people on the ground, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you back,’’ he said.
It was about 20 minutes before Nicole’s phone rang again. In that time, Bradford had backed his dark red Holden ute into the scene of New Zealand’s worst mass shooting, loaded up a badly injured father and daughter, and a limping man steeped in blood, and driven them to hospital.
Yesterday, that same ute was parked outside the home of 51-year-old Feroze Mohammed Ditta, who had been that limping man. He had been shot twice in the calf at the Masjid Al Noor after being trapped under 20 bodies in the crush to escape out of the mosque’s emergency exit. Ditta dragged himself to the gate, where that ute reversing up the street was a blessed sight.
‘‘I still remember the red ute backing up, you throwing your tools out of the back seat,’’ Ditta said. ‘‘I don’t know where you threw them. And making room for us, all bloody.’’
‘‘I’m just glad you’re all right, mate,’’ Bradford said, taking Ditta’s hand on the couch. He’d already visited him in hospital, in the beginning of what the pair say will be a lifelong friendship.
Bradford, a 32-year-old skylight salesman, was driving from a friend’s house to a job when he noticed a woman on the ground on Deans Ave. He assumed she’d fallen. But then there were others – five, six, seven, as many as 10.
‘‘It clicked in my head, s..., something is happening here. So I pulled over where Deans Ave goes from two lanes into one. I pulled over on the left-hand side there. Then I went back down through the path through the trees. I could hear the gunshots going off so I was thinking I need to be a little bit careful, because my wife is pregnant.’’
They have just bought a house and settled in. It’s their first child and a surprise – boy or girl, it doesn’t matter, Bradford said.
‘‘People were walking away from [the mosque] and people were walking towards it and noone had any idea ... It was pretty unreal. There wasn’t really too much going through my head – my wife, my baby, I don’t know. Just to try to do something.’’
He can’t remember when the gunshots stopped. He never saw the gunman but could have driven right past him.
When he arrived, there were others helping – a woman with an injured man, a guy whose black Commodore had been shot up and who was administering first aid and calm.
Bradford could see ambulances down the road, outside the cordon. They weren’t allowed in because the area still hadn’t been declared secure.
‘‘So I ran down to get my truck. That’s when I reversed it up to where you were,’’ he explained to Ditta, whose wife and two daughters sat on the lounge floor to listen.
‘‘When I saw you, you were literally soaked in blood. I’ve never seen so much blood before. I remember looking at you and watching you walk. You weren’t even really limping. I couldn’t believe how strong you were.’’
With his three casualties loaded up, Bradford just drove. There may have been traffic infringements. The hospital was chaos. He leant on his horn to try to get through. After dropping them off, he headed back to the cordon, helping a taxi driver look for his brother, and picking up a girl looking for her dad.
When Bradford hadn’t called back for 20 minutes, Nicole sent him an anxious question mark. He called after dropping off his precious cargo – ‘‘It was pretty full on – a bit scary,’’ Nicole said.
When he finally got home, the emotion hit. ‘‘I burst into tears and didn’t let you go really, did I? It was pretty horrible.’’
The hospital visit helped both Ditta and Bradford. ‘‘I was glad to see you,’’ Ditta said warmly.
‘‘I was glad to see you too, mate,’’ Bradford responded.
Ditta hailed Bradford as ‘‘an absolute hero’’. Bradford rejected the title. ‘‘I think you guys are the real heroes – what you have been through,’’ he told Ditta. ‘‘You guys are just showing the love . . . I’m just blown away by some of the stories that have come out of what people have done. What I did – I was just there. I didn’t really do anything, except drive you to the hospital.
‘‘Other people – that guy putting his own body in front of the gunman like that.‘‘