Bali bombing hero risked his life to rescue victims

Erik de Haart 1957–2025

Erik de Haart, a teetotaller, had no trouble travelling to Bali with 11 other members of the Coogee Dolphins Rugby League Club in October 2002 for an end-of-season holiday.

Erik de Haart pays his respects at the Bali bombing memorial in Coogee in 2008.Credit: Kate Geraghty

On October 12, de Haart, a kind-hearted man noted for his concern for others, took an intoxicated friend back to a hotel at the Kuta Beach tourist resort. He was returning to the club about 11pm when the bombs went off. The first – courtesy of a suicide bomber – was inside Paddy’s Bar.

“There was this dull thud and a bright orange mushroom cloud lit up the sky,” de Haart said later. “I thought, ‘Jesus, a gas main must have gone off’. Then it was deadly silent – the lights went out and the music went off. And then there was all this noise, glass smashing, roofs falling in.”

The first explosion was followed 45 seconds later by a more powerful blast from a van outside the Sari Club across the road. The bombs killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, 20 from the eastern suburbs of Sydney and six of the 11 members of the Coogee Dolphins. Another 240 people were injured.

Without a second thought, de Haart went straight into the Sari Club, amid the burning debris, hauling out wounded victims wherever he found them, all the time looking for his team buddies. He spent hours going in and out of the scenes of horror, risking his life each time.

“I’d probably been in and out half a dozen times,” he said later. “I’ve got all scars and burns on the bottom of my legs from kicking up ashes. At the time you were oblivious to it; all the time you were trying to get people out.”

He reached a point where he heard some girls trapped beneath a burning floor screaming for help. He knew he could not save them, but the memory of his decision haunted him for the rest of his life.

News of the bombing outrage spread quickly. The father of missing roommate Gerard Yeo rang de Haart, pleading: “Mate, if he’s dead, just please let me know.”

De Haart went to a makeshift morgue at the local Sanglah Hospital to search for remains of his friends. “I looked at every dead body, every body part, just whatever I could find to identify them,” he said.

De Haart was able to identify five of his friends. He did not immediately find Gerard Yeo, but in the prevailing chaos, little he saw was certain.

“There was four inches of bloody water on the floor of the triage room,” de Haart said later. “A pile of rags, sheets hanging off beds and shards of skin everywhere … we went through that and eventually came to what was the morgue.”

Some days later, de Haart returned to Sydney. Families and partners of Dolphins teammates were there to meet the survivors. “I was the first Dolphins guy out of customs,” he said. “They were glad to see me, then ... when no one else came out, they all physically deflated in front of me and I just
burst into tears. The guilt got me really bad. That flashed right around the world; I had mates in England and relatives in Holland ringing me up concerned because they’d seen me crying on TV.”

Erik John de Haart was born on December 10, 1957, one of five children of Dutch immigrants Klaas de Haart and Annie (nee Schouten). Klaas de Haart was a pastry chef who had a hobby farm and ran a fish-and-chip shop in Werris Creek, near Tamworth.

Eric de Haart during a workout at Coogee Surf Club just before dawn in 2008. He was training for his marathon in Chile.Credit: Peter Morris

The young de Haart did his primary schooling in Werris Creek and high school studies in Tamworth. He started playing rugby league early with the Werris Creek Magpies and was in the team that won the under 18s minor and major premiership undefeated in the local competition in 1975.

In 1976, he enrolled at the University of NSW to do degrees in commerce and law and played rugby league in the lower grades for South Sydney and Eastern Suburbs.

De Haart quit law but finished the bachelor of commerce degree in 1980, majoring in accounting and financial management. In 1984, after getting experience working in the United States and London, de Haart started an accounting business, Clovelly Taxation and Business Services, initially in Clovelly and later moving to Kensington, eventually becoming known as CTBS Partners.

He remained committed to the eastern suburbs, joining and sponsoring the Coogee Dolphins Rugby League team. He also sponsored the School of St Jude’s and an Indigenous football club in La Perouse. He travelled widely, survived a potentially devastating condition, the Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and accepted an invitation from Dolphin teammates on an end-of-season trip to Thailand in 2001.

After the Bali bombings, police moved quickly and made their first arrest on November 5, 2002. By April 2004, 33 people had been convicted over the bombings, which had been organised by Jemaah
Islamiyah, a violent terrorist group.

De Haart resumed his life in the eastern suburbs, but with a heavy heart. In 2005, he received a life membership to the Coogee Dolphins, but the memories lingered.

In 2008, he said he was trying to come to terms with the bombings, in the light of the identification and convictions of the perpetrators. “A lot of people can’t understand that I’m not concerned about the bombers; I can’t afford to be,” he told the Herald. “They were just mindless idiots who were doing what they’d been told to do. If I dwell on that too much, then my suffering goes on ... So, I’ve forced myself to forgive the bombers and to move on.”

De Haart was a regular at Cafe Jack’s on Anzac Parade at Kensington and the pool at Coogee Diggers. He liked physical challenges and participated in Racing the Planet – a 250-kilometre journey by foot across salt plains and barren hills in Chile’s remote Atacama Desert. His goal was to raise at least $60,000 for the Sydney Children’s Hospital. The training for the event was gruelling. “To me it was the right thing to do because it needs to be a challenge,” he said. “I wanted to impress people, I wanted to show them that I would go to these places that are out of the way, bit risky, but I’m not scared to do that.”

In 2010, on the anniversary of the bombings, Haart attended the unveiling of a commemorative plaque at Dolphins Point at Coogee, where he was reunited with Dr Bill McNeill, who had been on holiday in Bali. The pair had met while McNeill was treating the injured. They embraced and wept in each other’s arms.

Erik de Haart consoling Dr Bill McNeil OAM, who was one of the first on the scene at the Sari Club after the bombing, at the memorial service at Coogee marking the eighth anniversary of the Bali bombings in 2010.Credit: Dallas Kilponen

A year later, again at the memorial service in Coogee, he said: “They say time heals all wounds, but as this day draws near it becomes very tough. The smell of burnt bodies was in my nose for a long time. It’s tough to describe all the memories you have.”

On February 16, after returning from a trip to the Middle East, Eric de Haart, who had been suffering from diabetes, died. He is survived by his two brothers, two sisters, nine nephews, four nieces and 13 grand-nephews and -nieces. His funeral will be held on Wednesday, February 26, at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Randwick.

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