EXCLUSIVE: 'The split-second decision to save my kids that haunts me today'

The image of a Sydney dad guiding his masked kids out of Bondi Junction after the massacre is unforgettable. Chris Walsh now exclusively tells his story to Kidspot.

"He's got a knife!"

It was a blood-chilling scream that still haunts father-of-two Chris Walsh.

As mayhem erupted around them, the Walshes stood in shock on that fateful day, April 13, at Bondi Junction Westfield. Suddenly, their shopping excursion had become a life-or-death nightmare.

It was 3:10pm on a peaceful, bustling Saturday afternoon when Joel Cauchi launched the knife-wielding attack that horrified Australia. Only minutes earlier, 'Walshie' and his children, aged 10 and 12, had strolled into the Peter Alexander store to buy pyjamas.

Recalling the moment he heard the cry, he says: "There were people rushing around yelling at first. I just thought they were kids. Until someone yelled out: "He's got a knife!"

As Walsh ran to the store's front doors, a man in a green T-shirt veered past him. That man turned out to be Cauchi. 

"I saw him lunge towards another man and try to stab him. Fortunately, that guy managed to jump back far enough and didn't end up getting hurt," Walsh recalls.

The 47-year-old was then forced to make a split-second decision which still haunts him to this day. 

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Bondi Junction attack hero dad Chris Walsh, and his children whom he masked on the day. Image: Supplied

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"How am I going to get him down?"

"By the time Cauchi turned his back, I had already sized him up," Walsh says.

"My first instinct was: 'All right, how am I going to get him down?' But just as I had taken three or four steps closer, I decided I didn't want to leave the kids."

Instead, the dad raced back inside the store and locked the doors. He quickly ushered his children and everyone else into a storeroom. Safely inside, they would spend the next agonising 40 minutes waiting in fear as Cauchi carried out his attack.

Instead of staying with the group, Walsh again took a risk by venturing out to make sense of what was happening. 

It was then he was confronted with one of Cauchi's female victims.

"There was a lady who was lying just outside the doors," he recalls. "Although she was face down, it was quite obvious she had passed."

Chris Walsh walking his children out of Westfield after the attacks. Image: news.com.au

He hurried back inside the shop to check on the group - including his children.

"They had their phones in there with them and were chatting to their friends," he says. They had to make a decision no child should ever have to confront.

"My son had the idea to put everyone's phones on silent so that no one could hear them ... and find them."

It was then that Walsh heard gunshots ring out before two police officers arrived on the scene. 

"They came up the stairs and the look on their faces was just horrible. They quickly put on their gloves and began doing CPR on the lady who was lying outside Peter Alexander. They tried for 15 minutes before eventually moving on," he recalls, the memory of the traumatic experience clearly still taking a toll on him.

After that, Walsh says, events moved rapidly.

“I began chatting with a plain-clothes police officer who explained what happened. Then another officer came to the storeroom and announced: 'All right, you guys need to leave at some point'. But I wasn't comfortable with the children seeing what was out there."

If you're worried about how recent events are affecting your child, listen and subscribe to Kidspot's podcast Mum Club. Paediatric Psychologist, Amanda Abel, shares how to speak to children about worrying events and signs to look out for that tell they might be struggling.

RELATED: Dad’s impossible choice after Bondi Junction tragedy

The moment that was beamed around the world

Walshie's next decision was to get something, anything, to cover their eyes: "I didn't really want them to see the blood on the floor. So, I spoke to the shop assistant, and she grabbed a couple of the Peter Alexander eye-masks and I just put them on the kids." 

It was this image - a towering Walshie clinging tightly to his two children, guiding them from danger - that was beamed around Australia, and the world.

"I'm really fond of the saying that you're not really a man until you're a father, and you realise someone else's life is more important than your own," he says. "Once you see something that traumatic, at whatever age, you don't forget it."

Two weeks on from the tragedy and Walsh says his family are "coping well, given the circumstances."

"I had a chat with them on the Sunday afternoon because I really wanted to hear their memories of what they saw in case they had seen more than I had hoped," he says.  "My son kind of described a couple of things. You know, he mentioned the blood on the floor and he didn't like being in the storeroom and not knowing where I was."

Walsh says that while his daughter saw Cauchi launch at a man with a knife when they first ran into the store, "she seems to have handled it well."

Since then, the family have been to a counselling session. Walsh has also been in touch with his children's schools. He says, " they have come up with a plan on how best to approach and articulate the situation."

As for that hero title, Walshie shrinks from the word. Perhaps the memory of the moment still carries too much pain to process any such thoughts.

"All I did was try to protect my kids - it's what any parent would've done."

Originally published as EXCLUSIVE: 'The split-second decision to save my kids that haunts me today'