Fears for missing son end in joy

By ALISON HORWOOD

For two long days, Elaine and Jim McDougall sat by the telephone at home in Invercargill and willed it to ring.

More than 48 hours after the bomb blasts in Bali, they finally got the news.

Their 25-year-old son, Dean McDougall, who had been in one of the bars destroyed by the Bali bombings, had been found alive.

He had serious burns, and had been airlifted to Darwin by the Royal Australian Air Force.

"Isn't it wonderful. Oh the relief. We are just so happy that we have found him," Mrs McDougall told the Herald.

A doctor at Darwin Hospital telephoned her last night to say her son was there.

"There were lots and lots of people here and they knew from the look on my face that everything was okay. I didn't need to say anything," she said.

It had been a very long, anxious wait.

The doctor said Dean McDougall had burns to his lower body and a seriously burned leg.

Because of the tubes in his throat he had not been able to talk, so communicated his name and parents' telephone number through a complicated game of charades.

He was not well enough to speak to his mother and father.

Mrs McDougall said the hours since the blast had been the longest in her life.

"I never thought he was dead. I always had hope. I had an image of him walking around, alone, scared and injured."

The first news of her son came from a friend who had seen on the internet a picture of him on a hospital stretcher.

"It was hard to see, but we recognised him by his eyebrows. We were trying not to get too excited, but we thought it was him."

Dean McDougall, an accountant with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu in Wellington, had been in Bali for a week-long holiday with four Wellington friends, Richard Keane, 30, Craig Lough, 30, Mark Skridulaitis, 27, and Mike Guy, 27.

They had stayed to search for Mr McDougall, but last night said they would leave Bali as soon as possible.

One of those offering the McDougalls support was former Race Relations Commissioner Gregory Fortuin.

His daughter Carmen is the girlfriend of Mr Guy.

They spent the day calling officials, and Mr Fortuin said he had phoned Mrs McDougall several times.

"I spoke with his Mum five times and just told her to keep hope. It's fantastic news," he said last night.

Craig Lough said from Kuta that he was "immensely relieved" to hear that Mr McDougall was alive.

"It's been pretty anxious the last couple of days."

The five friends had arrived at Kuta Beach on Saturday, and all except Mr Lough went to the popular tourist spot Paddys Irish Bar - across the road from the Sari Club - to celebrate their first night.

They had been in the bar 90 minutes when the two explosions hit. The blasts blew the roof and a wall off Paddys, and knocked everyone to the floor.

Mr Keane told the Herald everything went black. The air smelled of burning hair and flesh. There was screaming, and the injured and dying lay all around.

Mr Keane, suffering cuts and an injured calf, tried to haul the wounded and dying out of the rubble.

Mr Lough heard the blast at the hotel and found Mr Keane amid the chaos. They later realised Mr McDougall was missing.

Mrs McDougall said earlier in the day that she had been frustrated at the lack of information the family had been receiving from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The 0800 information hotline had been difficult to get through to, and most of the phone lines into Bali, including those to hotels and the hospitals, had been overloaded.

But the McDougalls received phone calls yesterday from Prime Minister Helen Clark and Foreign Minister Phil Goff, assuring them that everything possible was being done to find Dean and the other missing New Zealanders.

"[Helen Clark] was nice, but I didn't give her too much time of day," said Mrs McDougall.

She and her husband had coped, with the support of close friends and family.

Although she had felt powerless just waiting for news, she said it had been a relief to know that her son's friends were doing all that they could to find him.

Bali messages

New Zealand travellers in Bali, and their families in New Zealand, can post messages on our Bali Messages page.

Foreign Affairs advice to New Zealanders

* Travellers should defer travel to Bali

* NZers in Bali should keep a low profile and remain calm

* Foreign Affairs Hotline: 0800 432 111

Feature: Bali bomb blast

Pictures from the scene of the blast

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