Undermanned: Paramedics ill-equipped to deal with Westfield massacre
Never-seen-before footage has been released of the day a hero cop ended Joel Cauchi’s deadly rampage after he stabbed six people to death inside Westfield Bondi Junction. SEE THE FULL VIDEO
NSW
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Never-seen before footage showing the moments before hero cop Amy Scott gunned down Bondi Junction mass killer Joel Cauchi has been released, as day four of an inquest into the massacre ends.
The CCTV vision from inside Westfield Bondi Junction shows the hero cop draw her gun to end Cauchi’s rampage, and also includes a recreation of the events on the day he fatally stabbed six and injured 16 others in April last year.
Released by the NSW Coroner’s Court on Thursday, the dramatic video first shows Cauchi lingering near an escalator during his bloody rampage before he heads upstairs in the shopping centre.
The video then cuts to two different screens, on the left showing the police’s digital recreation of what happened and on the right the actual CCTV footage.
Insp. Scott then goes up the same escalator, closely being followed by two men who are directing her to the danger.
Those two are the so-called “Bollard men”, French construction workers Silas Despreaux and Damien Guerot, who had earlier used bollards to fend off the crazed Cauchi.
Insp. Scott then breaks into a sprint – the digital recreation mimicking what she would be seeing at eye level – in pursuit of Cauchi, who at one point stops and turns towards a man outside arts supply store Eckersley’s.
Spotting him, Insp Scott orders members of the public to get behind her for their safety.
Suddenly, Cauchi turns around and sprints towards Insp Scott before she draws her gun from her holster and aims before the vision cuts out — moments before she shoots him.
Undermanned: Paramedics ill-equipped to deal with Westfield massacre
It comes as an elite NSW Ambulance paramedic told the inquest there were not enough tactically trained paramedics available to work on the day Cauchi stabbed six people to death inside the shopping centre.
The few highly specialist paramedics who were able to get to Bondi that day were delayed from entering the building after they didn’t have vital personal protective equipment (PPE) with them.
The inquest was told the delay did not cost any lives.
The paramedic, whose identity is suppressed, recalled phoning the NSW Ambulance control centre on an unrelated matter about 3.46pm, only to be told “someone has just gone nuts with a gun at Bondi”.
The court heard the paramedic is part of an elite unit of paramedics known as the special operations team, or SOTs, who receive military-style tactical training above and beyond their paramedicine training.
They fall under NSW Ambulance control but are often embedded with NSW Police’s tactical operations unit (TOU) and respond to situations that are deemed too risky for general duties paramedics, including an active armed offender situation.
The court heard there are 57 trained SOTs in the metropolitan area, that are seconded from their respective stations on 10 week rosters throughout the year.
The paramedic said rostering enough SOTs to cover the shifts had been a “historic problem for a number of years” and the roster covering April 13, 2024, was no different.
The paramedic, who was in charge of the unit that day as the designated duty officer, said there were 10 SOTs rostered on April 13, 2024, however, only two had been tasked to attend the scene by the time he was informed of the incident, and only five made it there at the height of the emergency response.
When questioned about the delay by counsel assisting the coroner, the paramedic said reforms were needed.
The court heard it was standard procedure for the duty officer to have been informed of the incident as soon as the control centre deemed specialist resources were required.
However, the paramedic said he’d only been told about it by “accident” after contacting the control centre about the unrelated matter.
He told the court subsequent issues that day, including the absence of PPE at the site, could have been better managed if he’d been notified quicker.
The paramedic said he immediately began co-ordinating resources, including telling a SOT coming from Penrith to divert to an undisclosed location to retrieve all the PPE gear from where it was being stored.
“There was a delay of the paramedics who arrived on scene being able to directly participate in any specialist police group activity until that ballistic PPE arrived on scene,” he said.
When questioned about the delay by counsel assisting the coroner, the paramedic said reforms needed.
“We need the equipment to be available at a location that is convenient or in the vehicles in which we respond to a scene,” he said.
Dawn Singleton, Yixuan Cheng, Faraz Ahmed Tahir, Ashlee Good, Jade Young and Pikria Darchia were all killed in the attack, while a further 10 people were injured, including a baby.
Inspector Amy Scott, working alone, shot Cauchi dead after he charged at her with the knife when she confronted him on the fifth level sky bridge.
Her actions are credited with saving multiple lives.
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Originally published as Undermanned: Paramedics ill-equipped to deal with Westfield massacre
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