Bali bombings 2002: Nurse Helen Zahos describes heartache of treating victims

‘This is real now and this is really serious’: A nurse on the frontline of Darwin’s medical response to the Bali bombings has described the efforts and chaos that went into saving lives.

When a man walked into the triage of Royal Darwin Hospital with minor injuries, saying he’d been stepped off a plane after a bombing, nurse Helen Zahos thought the story was “bizarre”.

“I remember him just standing there quite calmly and he told this story of a bombing,” she said.

“And we’re like oh, it’s a bit of an unusual story. How do we triage that?”

Ms Zahos ended her night shift with more questions than answers. She continued with her routine: went home, slept and ducked to Casuarina Square for food before her next shift.

It was there, amid the hustle and bustle of the centre, where she was told of the 2002 Bali bombings, an event which would shape her life.

“I was standing in Casuarina shopping centre when I received the call from the ambulance service saying there has been a bombing,” she said.

“To this day every time I walk past that spot, I do remember that moment because it was such a big event.”

Humanitarian nurse and paramedic Helen Zahos was on the frontline in Darwin’s response to the Bali bombings. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

Ms Zahos, a nurse and paramedic, was called to Royal Darwin to help prepare for the arrival of victims from Bali.

“We were starting to get equipment as more and more news filtered through and updates came through of what kind of injuries we were expecting,” she said.

“We were expecting the worst and I think even until the moment those people start arriving, we didn’t expect it to be that bad. It was much worse than what we anticipated.”

She said the mood of the hospital, abuzz with chatter amid the preparations, changed the second the first patient arrived.

“There was just this silence of, this is real now and this is really serious,” Ms Zahos said.

“More and more stories came out of what happened after the bombing. It was very emotional listening to these stories.

“Back then, mobile phones were very relatively new and I had an old Nokia brick phone and I remember this one guy just begging please can I just use your phone, I need to use your phone to call my mum and we were given strict instructions that these families need to be notified through the appropriate authorities.

“I remember thinking gosh, I really just wanted to give that poor man his mobile phone to be able to call his mum, just to let her know that he was alive and in Darwin.

“I was very young and fresh out of uni … I was still relatively young and to see that amount of severe injuries as a one off would be one thing, but to have these people with those levels of injuries was unprecedented.

“It felt like being in a war zone or what you could imagine a war zone would be like.”

Ms Zahos recalled leaving the hospital and breaking down in tears. She called her mum for comfort while trying to absorb the aftermath of such a tragedy.

“It took all of us a very long time to get over that,” she said.

“Months and months, possibly six months to ever eat a sausage again or watch meat being barbecued.

“It is very emotional thinking about those events back then.”

While difficult in the moment, the response to the bombing shaped Ms Zahos’ future.

Ms Zahos, who grew up in Groote Eylandt and now lives in Queensland, went on to become a humanitarian, disaster response nurse and paramedic, travelling across the world to help people in need. Her most recent trip was to Ukraine.

“That was my very first major disaster to be involved in,” she said.

“Once you experience something like that at that level, then when another disaster comes along, you’re like, ‘oh, I’ve got this’.

“I always go back to Bali as being the very first and the most significant for me.”