Mole Joel - Bali Bomb

What were you up to in Bali?
I had been spending a coupla weeks on holiday with me bird (where we got engaged) after spending a couple of months in Sumatra.

Where were you when the bomb went off?
Lucky I'm a boring old git these days, 'cos i was asleep in me bed in Cempaka Losmen (Poppies Lane 2) when it went off. It's about 100 metres away from the Sari Club.

Why weren't you in the Sari Club? (Hadn't you been there earlier in the week?)
Me bird had flown home the day earlier, thank God, and I'd spent loads of money on the engagement ring and so I was trying to save a bit of cash by not going out on the piss. I just put on me Alan Partridge tape on me Walkman and fell asleep.

What happened?
The next thing I know I'm woken up by this massive bang. I step outside and onto broken glass where some of my hotel's windows had blown out. There was a huge fire coming from the direction of the SC. I got my shoes on and ran out into the street where it was absolute carnage. Bodies scattered everywhere. Some dead, some alive and some I couldn't tell. I knelt down to the first body I came to and started CPR but after a while I realised that the air I was giving him was coming straight out of a huge gash in his neck. I looked at his legs and they were in tatters too. He was dead for sure so I decided to try to help someone with more of a fighting chance. So I started CPR on a woman who was badly burned and motionless. I couldn't revive her either. I then flagged down a fleeing moped and got him to take me to the nearest "hospital" so I could try to help. It was hopelessly under staffed and under equipped to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. There was one doctor, three nurses and four or five unqualified helpers. We did what we could with the limited resources. I remember having to rip down curtains to use as bandages and tourniquets. It was fucking awful and will stay with me until the grave.

Did other touros help out too?
There were about four others including me.

Did you know anyone caught up in it?
I kept thinking the whole night about the group of friends I'd made that week and that they may have died as I'd made loose arrangements to meet up with them for a drink that night. Thankfully, I met up with all of them the following morning; they were on the beach huddled round a burning pillow as their hotel had been damaged in the blast.

What did you do the day after?
For the following two days I tiptoed around Kuta just shitting myself at any loud noise.

Where are you now and what are your plans?
I'm now safe and sound with good friends in WA where, with any luck, I'll be be getting shacked off me nut and generally just trying to avoid any more bombs.

Back >>