- The girl was shielded by a stranger who was shot at
- Her parents spoke of their terrifying moment their daughter vanished
- They are in contact with the woman who saved their daughter
- READ MORE: Bondi Beach LIVE updates
The parents of a three-year-old girl caught in the Bondi Beach terror attack have spoken of the heroic stranger who shielded their child as bullets rained around them.
Parents Wayne and Vanessa spoke of the incredible moment they found their daughter, Gigi, hidden under the body of a woman who had been shot in the attack.
The family, who have three children, had been in separate ends of the park when the shooting began, with Wayne forced to shelter under a nearby table with their daughter Capri.
But it wasn’t until Vanessa called Wayne to ask if he also had Gigi with him that ‘absolute panic’ began to set in.
She said she’d been watching Gigi dance in the field when all of a sudden ‘she was gone’.
‘I gave Capri to Vanessa and I said: ‘I’m gonna go look for Gigi’. I went, I was looking, there was just blood and bodies everywhere and she was wearing a pink skirt and I saw this lady lying on top of her,’ Wayne told Sky News.
She said: ‘I’ve got your daughter, I’ve been protecting her.’
‘I said you’ve saved my daughter’s life. I said I’ll be indebted to you for the rest of my life.
Wayne said he found his daughter being protected by a woman, who’d been shot at as she protected the girl with her body
The family were in the park when the shooting began, with Wayne forced to take cover under a table with one of his young daughters
‘Her name is Jess. I spoke to her about 10 minutes after I took her (Gigi). She was going to hospital, she said she was okay.’
He said another woman was lying ‘lifeless’ next to Jess.
Vanessa, who by that point had hold of the couple’s two other children, said a police officer, who’d also been ‘shot in the in the head’, grabbed her and tried to force her to get down.
‘I actually tried to grab the policeman’s gun and he grabbed me. I was ready to just get in there and just – I didn’t know what to do. I could just see blood everywhere and then I stayed down,’ she said.
‘It was mayhem. I don’t know how I didn’t get hit. There were bullets all around me. It’s an absolute miracle.’
The couple said they felt like ‘sitting ducks’ as they took shelter while waiting for what ‘felt like hours’ for the shooting to end.
‘It was the most appalling experience,’ Wayne said. ‘That this can happen in Australia and we’re just lying there and shots were coming.
‘I feel bad that there was nothing more that I can do but I had two little children and I just had to get them out of there.’
It’s believed the couple have exchanged contact details with Jess who was later taken to hospital for treatment.