Fire and rain: Bali bombing angel Hanabeth Luke still on frontline

When Hanabeth Luke was lifted off her feet by the Bali bomb blast, she miraculously survived and responded with heroism. Twenty years later when floods tore her community apart she was just as willing to do the same.

Bali bombing survivor Hanabeth Luke reflects on the 20th anniversary of the bombing while on holiday on Stradbroke Island, Queensland. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Twenty years ago Hanabeth Luke used electrical wires to hoist herself over a 4m wall, threw her arms around a dying badly burned ­Maroubra teenager and dragged him from the inferno consuming the Sari Club in the Bali district of Kuta.

A car bomb set by Jihadi terrorists had ripped through the night in an act that would go down in ­infamy.

Luke’s boyfriend Mac ­Gajardo was killed instantly, one of 182 souls taken by a blast that she ­described as “an empty sound that did not resonate. It was a thud, like the slam of a car door but multiplied to a volume I simply cannot describe.’’

Barefoot and dressed only in shorts and a black tank top, Luke threw Tom Singer’s arm around her shoulder and helped him away from the surging flames, a deed that was photographed and flashed around the world, a symbol of defiance in the face of terror. Singer later died of his injuries.

The Australian's front page from October 14, 2002. The main photo shows Hanabeth Luke helping Tom Singer out of a burning Sari Club.

Fast-forward two decades to February 2022 and the fire was ­replaced by rain.

From her home on a hill above Evans Head in northern NSW, Luke again found herself reluctantly in the frontline trying to fight back against disaster. Days of torrential downpours in the Northern Rivers submerged entire towns, including Woodburn, just 10km upriver from Luke’s home.

She and a friend commandeered a tinnie and spent several days pulling stranded residents from roofs and ferrying supplies to those cut off by floodwater, also helping to co-ordinate evacuation management centres in the town. It’s an act she is reluctant to talk about.

“My house was on the hill so I wasn’t flooded but many of our dear friends and neighbours were and I jumped into a tinnie and I was rescuing people during the floods,” she said.

“The whole town was underwater, the only place that wasn’t was my daughter’s preschool.”

The floods prompted some ­reflection for Luke on the nature of recovery two decades after the Bali blast that she concedes has had a huge effect on her life.

“One thing I’ve come to realise when the floods hit our region this year in the Northern Rivers and I was a part of the rescue and recovery efforts, I came to think about that word resilience and what that meant,” she said.

“Recovery isn’t as simple as bouncing back, it’s an ongoing process.”

Luke threw herself into life in the years after the 2002 Bali bombing; by her own admission she was daring the universe to strike her down, surfing huge waves without fear and letting her determination not to “let the terrorist beat me” guide her.

“Everyday was such a bonus, I sort of threw myself into life harder than before,” she said.

“But at the same time you can’t run from grief and trauma forever; you have to stop and deal with it at some point.’’

Luke was miraculously unscathed by the Sari Club blast – except for a tailbone injury she discovered years later. But she was diagnosed with PTSD around the 10-year anniversary of the bombing, when she was a PhD student tutoring at Southern Cross University. It was around this time she published a book on her experience titled Shock Waves: Finding Peace after the Bali Bomb.

As the 20th anniversary rolls around, Luke is happily married to Kieran, who she got to know through surfing about a decade ago, and is a busy working mother to eight-year-old Tristan and five-year-old Connie.

Hanabeth Luke in a tinnie with skipper Kira Hartland in Woodburn during the floods in February.

The word hero has never sat comfortably with Luke nor has “The Angel of Bali” label that the press bestowed on her in the days after the bombing.

“In some ways it does feel like another life. This big anniversary has come around and people still recognise me as the Angel of Bali,” she said.

“I had that iconic photo taken and I found it quite hard being seen as some sort of hero when there were so many people who were doing so much that night to rescue others; it felt strange.

“I’m nothing special here. I did what everyone was doing and someone happened to have a camera at that moment; I have a strange relationship with that photo.”

Luke has grown her lifelong passion for the environment into a research career lecturing in regenerative agriculture at Southern Cross University and running a research project focused on improving soil quality. She also ran as an independent in this year’s federal election.

“I don’t think about it all the time. It’s part of my life and I recognise that it profoundly affects who I am,” Luke said.

“I think it’s a complex experience and in one regard I’m so lucky to have survived that event and many did not, but at the same time I could have so easily died.

“It makes you so aware of your mortality and how precious every day is. I’ve been very committed to living life to the fullest and also giving back but trying to not take anything for granted.”

Luke will travel to Bali to meet other survivors to mark the anniversary and has planned to link with the photographer who took the photo of her.

She also acknowledged the “strange dimension” to the anniversary in being portrayed in the TV drama Bali 2002, though she thought it was a well balanced telling of the story.

Luke will speak about regeneration at TEDx Byron Bay Women later this month.