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EXCLUSIVE
Retail workers who were traumatized after saving a nine-month-old baby were overwhelmed with emotion as they courageously went back to the location of the Bondi stabbing incident where they had acted heroically.
Ashlee Good, 38, thrusted her injured baby into the arms of strangers inside the Tommy Hilfiger store in Sydney’s Westfield Bondi Junction on Saturday afternoon, begging them to save her daughter’s life, despite being critically wounded herself.
Using clothes from the store to stem the bleeding, shoppers and staff desperately worked to stabilise the pair until emergency services arrived at the scene.
The baby girl is currently in a serious but stable condition after undergoing emergency surgery, however, despite the best efforts of bystanders and paramedics, her mother later died in hospital.
Tommy Hilfiger staff, along with workers from sister company Calvin Klein, gathered on Monday morning at the memorial set up in Oxford Street mall to honour the victims of the attack.
Retail workers from Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger lay flowers at the Bondi Junction memorial site on Monday
There were emotional scenes as the group hugged each other and wept
The group could be seen hugging one another as they broke down in tears after laying bouquets of flowers onto the ground.
The manager of Calvin Klein told Daily Mail Australia Tommy Hilfiger staff had worked to save the baby and her mother’s life by collecting clothes from around the store and helping to compress their wounds.
Shortly after leaving the memorial site, those members of the group could be seen hugging each other as they sat on a wooden bench sobbing.
‘It’s still pretty raw for them,’ she said.
The stores, which are both owned by parent company PVH Corp, are located on level four, but at opposite sides of the centre.
When chaos erupted on Saturday, both stores went into lockdown.
Two brothers who were in the Tommy Hilfiger store and helped saved the baby described their ordeal moments after being evacuated out of the centre on Saturday to a Channel Nine journalist live on air.
‘The baby got stabbed and, yeah, the mum got stabbed,’ one brother said.
‘The mum came over with the baby and threw it at me.
‘I just helped by holding the baby … and trying to compress the baby.’
The manager said she organised for staff from the two stores to meet so they could support one another as they headed back to the site of the tragedy.
She said she wasn’t working on Saturday, but was ‘so proud’ of her team who acted swiftly to bunker down with shoppers.
‘KJ, here,’ she said, gently patting another visibly upset woman on the back, ‘looked after everyone and got them to safety.’
Pictured: The Tommy Hilfiger store inside Bondi Junction where workers fought to save the life of a nine-month-old baby girl
The baby’s mother Ashlee Good (pictured) is one of the six people who died in the tragedy
One Calvin Klein staffer said she was on her break at the time havoc began to unfold.
‘I was walking through the centre and I was on the phone and thought it was funny people were running,’ she said.
‘Then all of a sudden I saw people going to hide in stores and heard screaming and gun shots.’
Asked how it felt to be back at the scene, she said ‘strange’.
‘It’s really scary. You feel a bit on edge being out in public.’
While a reopening date for the centre is yet to be announced, workers and shoppers have now been granted access to pick up their cars after police closed down the crime scene on Monday.
As the group departed, one worker – whose car was still parked at Westfield – could be seen bracing herself for the daunting task of re-entering the building to collect her vehicle.
Police were called to the busy shopping centre at 3.20pm on Saturday – the first day of school holidays – after Joel Cauchi, a 40-year-old with schizophrenia, began massacring shoppers with a hunting knife, killing six and injuring at least a dozen others.
Footage posted online shows the chaos and terror that erupted as shoppers fled for their lives, running through the centre, while others took shelter in locked shops.
Inspector Amy Scott was patrolling nearby and was first on the scene. She entered the shopping centre by herself and bravely ran towards the offender, before shooting him dead when he lunged towards her with the knife.
Calvin Klein workers and their loved ones (woman seated on the left, pair standing on the left, and woman and man standing to the right) and Tommy Hilfiger staffers and their friends (seated on the bench/ crouching on the ground in the centre) visited the memorial on Monday to pay tribute to the victims
Advertising heiress Dawn Singleton, 25, architect Jade Young, 47, artist Pikria Darchia, 55, security guard Faraz Tahir, 30, and Chinese student Yixuan Cheng, 27, died at the scene.
Twelve others – including Ms Good and her daughter – were rushed to hospitals across Sydney in varying conditions.
While investigations are still in their early stages, police have revealed Cauchi was originally from Queensland but moved to Sydney about a month ago.
He had longstanding mental health issues after being diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 17, with authorities working to determine what level of care he had received and if he had fallen through cracks in the mental health system.
Cauchi lived a transient lifestyle and was believed to have been sleeping rough in Sydney.
He is understood to have not been in regular contact with his family and to have been off his medication.
On Monday, NSW Premier Chris Minns announced $18million in funding for an independent coronial inquest into Saturday’s tragedy.
