'There's still hope': How Bondi community rushed to help during Hanukkah attack

Scrolling through the videos and photos from the shooting in Bondi Beach, not far from where I lived in Sydney until about a year ago, I found myself scanning in fear for faces that I recognized.

I already knew that friends and acquaintances were there, from the WhatsApp groups that I'm still a part of, and, eventually, I saw and heard from a few of them. An hour after the attack, many were still at the beach, alarmed and shocked, but also surrounded by sirens.

The shooting happened within a stone's throw of the Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club -- a beachfront clubhouse built in 1934 that hums every weekend with volunteer lifeguards wearing uniforms of bright yellow and red. When the shooting started, one of the members with military experience was the first to run out, drawing in a number of terrified children.

A friend who was there told me that within seconds of the gunfire ending, a crew of "clubbies" surged to the scene. In videos of the aftermath, I could see the familiar equipment and yellow boards that I had trained with when I became a volunteer in Bronte, a nearby beach.

"We went out with a couple of first-aid kits at first, and it clearly wasn't enough," said Matias Bengolea, 41, a lifesaver who had just finished his afternoon patrol when he heard the pop of gunfire. "I ran back and was getting everything -- oxygen and defibrillators and boards to carry people, because they didn't have enough stretchers."

"It was a bit crazy," he added. "There were people dressed as Christmas elves because we were having a Christmas party -- and they were doing CPR."

That communal scramble to help, deeply ingrained in Australian culture, is the quieter story of the Sunday shooting that many now hope will linger beyond the flowers lining sidewalks or the investigation of the two alleged attackers. Along with the 15 people killed, dozens were wounded, and on a golden beach known for sunrise swims, those bloodied by terror found a community of local and global responders that pulled together in unforeseen ways.

First, there was a man -- identified by Australia's main public broadcaster as Ahmed Al Ahmed, a Syrian immigrant who owns a fruit shop -- who hid behind a car then rushed at one of the shooters as the man approached a crowd gathered to celebrate Hanukkah. By grabbing the gun away from the shooter, he saved lives. A video of his heroism reached my chat groups within minutes of it happening.

An image from Instagram followed later, spreading widely among locals by Monday morning. It showed Jackson Doolan, one of the full-time professional lifeguards who work at the three main beaches in eastern Sydney, running barefoot with a heavy medical bag from Tamarama Beach a mile away from Bondi. Jacko, as he is known, was about halfway there when the photo was taken, in mid-sprint, shortly after the shooting started.

It was shared by another lifeguard who had helped treat victims of a stabbing at a mall in Bondi last year, grabbing clothes from a rack to make a tourniquet.

Those of us who had seen him in the surf were not surprised. Few gathering places anywhere in the world are as likely as Sydney's beaches to have scores of the fit and first-aid-trained, nearby and eager to help.

Bondi Beach, while famous for tourists, is more often enjoyed by sun-scorched locals who are there nearly every day, and that crowd was heavily represented in Sunday's aftermath. I immediately recognized Shannon Hardaker, a lifelong Bondi resident and part-time dog walker who taught my family to surf, and whom I rarely saw facing away from the ocean during my nearly eight years in Sydney.

"Heaviest stuff I've ever seen," he said in a video posted to Instagram to let loved ones know he was safe. "I'm shaking."

Photos in local media showed him just before that, helping police with a distressed man near the bridge where the shooters had been firing from.

Through a friend, I also found an 18-year-old volunteer lifeguard who had been walking close by when the gunmen reached the high ground of a footbridge and started firing. He said he had watched police shoot at them (killing one, arresting the other). Then he rushed to the aid of a couple who were among the first people shot. They were both dead.

He went on to help a half-dozen others during what first responders described as a period of frantic triage, mixing civilians, lifeguards, police and security guards who had been hired to protect the gathering where children could get free doughnuts and face painting.

Shirtless or in uniform, those who had gathered around the wounded performed CPR. They tagged the most severely injured with red markers to ensure they were treated first. They lifted young and old on boards usually used to pull people from the waves. Many were covered in blood.

Witnesses and authorities had made clear by that point that the gunmen were targeting the Jewish community at a holiday event with hundreds of people.

The collaborative emergency response -- featuring immigrants from many countries working alongside deeply entrenched locals -- was, for many who know Bondi, a healthier focal point for those trying to draw larger lessons from the tragedy.

Bengolea, a carpenter who moved to Sydney from Argentina in 2019, didn't quite know what to say when I asked him to explain what Sunday revealed about the culture of the area, what people outside surf clubs or Bondi might not understand.

"I wouldn't know how to describe it," he said. The call went quiet, his voice broke. I could tell he was crying. I was, too.

"There's still hope," he said, taking a deep breath. "I think that's the point. People rushed to help."