The first person to come face-to-face with the Bondi attackers has been revealed in a new Sky News documentary.
Hero couple Boris and Sofia Gurman were widely believed to be the first victims of the terror attack, as they tried to stop gunman Sajid Akram the moment he got out of the car near the Bondi footbridge.
However Sky News host and journalist Sharri Markson, who has been covering the attack from the very beginning, reveals that someone else was shot moments prior.
20-year-old Ed Bickerstaff had just finished his bartending shift at Bondi Pavilion and was on his way home from work when he came face-to-face with the gunmen moments before the shooting began.
“I walked past the bus stop on the pavement on Campbell Pde and I see the car parked there,” Bickerstaff told the Sky News host.
“I’m walking, but I’m looking at them, a bit confused. I remember one of them definitely walks in front of me and across me, one of them’s holding this big gun to the sky on the side.
“I’m looking at him, and then I hear a set of gunshots,” he continued.
The young man was shot through the hip as he tried to flee, and fortunately, his injuries were not life-threatening and he has since recovered.
“And that moment I just sprinted down the pavement just trying to get as far away as possible. I hear the next set of shots, and that’s when I feel something in my hip … I’d been shot. And then I ducked behind a car for cover.”
When the attack unfolded, Markson was reporting on a Hanukkah event at Dover Heights, a five-minute drive from Bondi.
“I got my husband to drive me straight there, and from then on, it was night-and-day, non-stop,” she said.
The documentary airs on Tuesday and it reconstructs the attack in real time with never-before-seen vision.
Markson, who is a Jewish Australian, conducted 57 on-camera interviews, and said that while she felt it was her duty to cover the shooting, the work had taken an emotional toll.
“It’s been really tough, really emotionally difficult, no question about it,” she said.
“But I’m interviewing Matilda’s parents and they’ve lost their daughter — it’s the least I can do to tell their stories.”
Image: Sky News
