Witnesses to the stabbing at a mall in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday described a scene of terror as shoppers fled from the knife-wielding man or crowded into stores as panic spread through the shopping centre.
Some shoppers hid inside as alarms went off. Others ran out, screaming as they passed corpses on the floor.
When Gavin Lockhart, 37, saw people running as he sat inside a coffee shop at the mall, there was a moment of confusion. “Is this a celebrity?” he thought first. “Is it because of a gunman?”
Then he ran away when he heard, “He’s got a knife! He has a knife!”
He followed coffee shop owner Michael Dunkley, 57, who also led his wife, who was cooking, and two baristas into a staffroom where they could lock the door. Mr Dunkley said afterwards that he had only one thing on his mind when the screaming started: “I’ve got to get my wife and crew to safety.”
Mr. Dunkley left the room to try to chase the attacker, who he described as a thin man with a beard and short hair, wearing dark green pants and a green jersey.
Then, Mr. Dunkley recounted, he saw a policeman try to stop the assailant. When the officer told the man to put down his knife, he grabbed him with his weapon, the cafe owner said.
“He said nothing,” said Mr. Dunkley. “He seems determined.”
The officer then shot the attacker on the fifth floor of the mall, in a walkway near a phone store and a clothing alteration shop, Mr. Dunkley. When the attacker collapsed, the officer immediately began giving him CPR, the cafe owner said.
“In this country, these things shouldn’t happen,” Mr. Dunkley said. “People come here because it’s safe.”
Andrew Reid, 44, was shopping for a bed when he heard people were being stabbed at the mall and told shoppers to evacuate. Many of the stores were on lockdown, but after seeing people lying on the floor, he said, bleeding, he used his training as a lifeguard to help the two women.
One had a wound on his back, he said, expressing anger that the attacker would stab someone from behind. “It is very cowardly,” said Mr. Reid.
“We got some clothes at the clothing store, trying to stop the bleeding,” he added.
About 30 yards away, the second woman lay unconscious, he said. He ran over to find a deep gash in his upper chest where he had to apply compressions, making CPR difficult.
“There was a lot of blood around him,” he said. “Honestly, he doesn’t think he’s done it.”
Even hours after the attack, witnesses have trouble processing what happened.
In his 20 years working as a lifeguard on nearby beaches, Mr. Reid said, he often encountered drownings. While he has experience with wounds, he said he doesn’t usually treat multiple stabbing victims in a row. He said he was terrified, but tried to remain unaffected while trying to save people’s lives.
“You just take the emotion out of things like that,” he said. “You just have to.”
Mr. Lockhart, who said he saw the officer shoot the attacker, appeared distraught. “The one positive I look at is the police who probably saved my life,” he said.
