Guardian angel ‘saved and inspired’ Bali survivor Megan Basioli

Inside Perth’s burns unit, Megan Basioli met her ‘guardian angel’ and future mentor, Fiona Wood.

Burns specialist Fiona Wood and former patient, Bali bombing survivor and now burns nurse, Megan Basioli on Tuesday. Picture: Philip Gostelow.

Three days after the bombings, 14-year-old Megan Basioli’s world had come apart.

As she lay recovering in Royal Perth Hospital, having sustained severe burns to her arms, legs and hands, Australia’s youngest Bali survivor learnt she had lost her ­father in a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 87 other ­Australians.

Ms Basioli, now 34, can still remember the rubble, the panic and the pain as she stumbled through the burning wreckage of the Sari Club and crouched in a laneway, waiting for her father to appear with her stepmother and step-­sister.

“Everything happened so quickly after the bomb blast, and 20 years later it’s still hard to separate the time from when it detonated and when I was in the Perth burns unit being told Dad was gone,” Ms Basioli said.

“It all seemed to combine into one long nightmare.”

Megan’s father Peter Basioli was killed in Bali.

At Perth’s burns unit – which received 28 Bali survivors with horrific body burns and infections – Ms Basioli met her “guardian angel” and future mentor, Fiona Wood, who would inspire the teenager to become a burns nurse in the same hospital.

Professor Wood, who was awarded Australian of the Year for her work as a burns specialist, told The Australian she had remained in close contact with many of her “Bali patients” but vividly recalled her youngest. “We keep an open book policy for all our patients, because their lives were so completely changed after Bali, but I remember Megan because she was my youngest,” she said.

Megan Basioli, 14, arrives at the Royal Perth Hospital.

“About a decade ago, I remember being in the operating theatre, and I looked up and suddenly locked eyes with the young nurse opposite and despite the mask and heavy gown I knew immediately it was Megan.

“It was just like looking back through time. And even though it never gets any easier remembering those events and the severity of those burns – even 20 years on – that encounter made me very happy. ”

Ms Basioli, who spent four weeks recovering in hospital, said her career path had already been decided in the burns unit, although she did not know it at the time.

“I remember how comforting and lovely Fiona was when I was in hospital; years later when I was thinking about a career in nursing, I realised I had already made up my mind – it was a natural fit,” she said.

“It was surreal to be seeing this woman, who helped me when I was a teenager, in surgery operating on others,” Ms Basioli said.

“I will never forget working with Fiona in the emergency room when we had a very serious burns case come through.

“Once we had finished treating the patient, she immediately came over to me and just gave me a massive hug.

Megan Basioli at the Royal Perth Hospital where she works as a nurse.

“Before that, I knew I wanted to be able to give back, and I didn’t want to see people in the kind of pain I went through,” she said.

Twenty years after the bombings, Ms Basioli said she was now able to speak more freely about the trauma of those events and forgive the terrorist who killed her father.

“It took me a long time to come to terms with what happened. Now I feel more comfortable in my skin and I can talk about it,” she said. “Initially, there was a lot of anger but now I understand it is wasted emotion. It’s not going to bring my Dad back. By holding on to that hatred, the only person that it’s going to affect is me.”