Witnesses of CBD massacre try to make sense of horror

A MAN has told of the traumatic moment he tried to save 10-year-old Thalia Hakin, one of the youngest victims of the CBD rampage.

ANDREA HAMBLIN

3 min read

January 24, 2017 - 6:16PM

VIC News

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A MAN has told of the traumatic moment he tried to save 10-year-old, one of the youngest victims of the CBD rampage.

Gary Oke had been walking towards the RACV Club on Bourke St when he heard sirens and horns.

A framed portrait of Thalia Hakin left among tributes on Bourke St. Picture: David Crosling

“I went to the kerb to investigate and have a look at what the commotion was all about when l heard this over-accelerating car coming from behind me, and when I turned around … it was right there,” he told told Radio 3AW’s Neil Mitchell today.

“I just watched in horror. It just came up to the laneway and the bodies just went everywhere, they just went flying up in the air.

“He didn’t brake at all, he just kept going.”

Mr Oke found the little girl lying face down near bicycles, not long after he had helped her mother.

Along with Club staff members Jess and Troy, the trio performed CPR but it was too late to save her.

“She was a beautiful-looking girl just out for the day with her parents.

“I still can’t believe it,” he said.

“I wanted to convey to the family that in some way that gives some type on comfort that she didn’t die alone. That people were trying to save her.”

Sharn Baylis has also been left traumatised after trying to save a victim’s life.

For her, the bleeding face of a young man is etched in her mind.

Over and over, she thinks about what she could have done differently, whether she should have — or could have — done more than pumping his chest as he lay bleeding in the entrance of a Bourke St clothes shop.

The awful memories are so clear, yet the events somehow don’t feel real.

Jesse Donnarumma and Sharn Baylis, who helped give CPR to a victim. Picture: David Crosling

“Standing there at the time, I felt really disassociated — the horror of it didn’t seem real,” she said.

“Even now, the enormity of it hasn’t sunk in.

“Maybe it will all hit me like a tonne of bricks,” she said.

Ms Baylis and her partner had just arrived from Adelaide and were walking in Bourke St when the car ploughed through the crowd of shoppers just metres away from them.

Like hundreds of other witnesses, the couple has spent the weekend repeating their memories of the events, trying to make sense of what occurred.

Strangers have been united; Ms Baylis said she hugged a man on a tram yesterday after learning he too had been a witness to the horrific events.

STRANGERS GATHER TO MOURN MELBOURNE’S LOST

Talking with friends and family, experts said, was key to recovery.

Already more than 900 people have spoken to volunteer counsellors and chaplains who have been walking the CBD to provide “psychological first aid”.

That’s code for “having a chat”, chaplain Stuart Stuart said.

About 40 volunteers from the Red Cross and the Victorian Council of Churches will continue roaming the streets this week and at a city vigil tonight, chatting to anyone who needs a friendly ear.

Mr Stuart, VCC chief, said it was important for witnesses and bystanders to remember it was normal to have feelings like confusion, stress, grief and anger.

“We want people to keep talking about it,” Mr Stuart said.

“It’s often said language is digestion for the mind.

“It’s when people lock it up inside, don’t talk and isolate themselves — they’re the people we worry about the most.”

Mr Stuart said there would be a particular focus today on speaking to workers returning to the CBD for the first time since Friday.

andrea.hamblin@news.com.au

@andiehamblin

Tips for recovery:

— Speak to family and friends about what you saw and how you’re feeling

— Get some exercise

— Try to get back to your routine

— Take time out for yourself, do something to spoil yourself

— Get extra sleep