Hotel guests pull burned blast victims from swimming pool

By IAN STUART

Rotorua policeman Barry Hunt watched the skin flake off the arms of a badly burned man yesterday as he tried to help him out of a Bali swimming pool.

Minutes before, the man, a large paraplegic, had been caught by two bomb blasts which ripped through the Sari Bar on the Indonesian island resort.

In desperation, the man and scores of others badly burned when the bombs triggered huge gas fires, were rushed next door and put into the swimming pool of Mr Hunt's hotel to cool their burns and ease their suffering.

As ambulances struggled to get through the rubble littering the streets of Kuta Beach, Mr Hunt and family members tried to get the badly hurt man out of the pool to give him what limited first aid they could.

Mr Hunt, 49, and his wife Fiona were jolted out of their sleep in their hotel room about 50 metres from the club when the blast went off about 4.30am (NZDT) yesterday.

They moved down to the carpark to find a chaotic scene as injured and burned victims were brought into the hotel.

He said the burned paraplegic man had to be removed from the pool.

"The skin was just dripping of his arms and hands when we tried to move him and sit him up. He was a big guy, really heavy. There were burned people everywhere."

He said there was virtually no medical help available because ambulances could not get near the hotel or club.

All other guests could do was try to cool the burns and minimise the damage, he said.

"Everyone was just pouring water over everybody. It seemed to take hours for the ambulances to get there."

Many of the scores of victims were carried from the club and the hotel on sun loungers from the pool complex.

Mr Hunt, a 27-year police veteran, said the scene he faced in the carpark was nothing like he had ever seen.

"I have seen bodies before but ... everyone was burned, it was just horrific. They were lying there with their clothes burned off them, blown off them.

"There was blood everywhere. It was like a movie."

Mr Hunt said soon after the blasts there were 20 or 30 people lying in the carpark screaming in pain and for help.

"No one could do anything. There were a few nurses and they could only pour water over them to cool them down."

Mr Hunt said he felt a great sense of helplessness.

As they waited for the ambulances to arrive, guests smashed down doors of hotel rooms to get blankets and linen to keep the victims warm and cover their burns and injuries.

"There was nothing we could do. I did not see any first aid kits."

He said they had to watch people die because there was nothing they could do to help.

"We were sitting there like stunned mullets. You could help people coming in and we moved a few bodies around to fit them all in."

The Dewi Sri Hotel where Mr Hunt, his wife Fiona, his sister Shirley Braun and her husband Max, and friend Leslie Wicks were staying was only a few metres from the Sari Club. After the explosion the only way out of the club was down an alley and through the hotel.

The first explosion woke Mrs Hunt, and Mr Hunt said he woke to the second explosion and his wife's screams.

He said the scene that greeted them was like the worst television nightmare.

"It was unbelievable. Everyone was just covered in blood."

He said his wife was unhurt but "not too good" after what she had seen.

"She wants to hijack the next plane and come home."

Mr and Mrs Hunt were on their first visit to Bali. They had originally planned to go to Rarotonga but had decided to join the Brauns who were regular visitors to Bali.

"I wish I hadn't."

Like most tourists, Mr Hunt said his travel insurance had a clause excluding terrorism.

His group had moved to another hotel some distance from Kuta Beach but had to pay for their accommodation and did not know how they would get back to New Zealand.

He said they planned to contact the New Zealand Embassy today or tomorrow.

"We don't know what they are recommending we do. No one is telling us," he said.

He was unsure if he would return to New Zealand on a commercial flight, on an Australian military flight or on a New Zealand air force aircraft.

"All the Aussies we are talking to at the hotel haven't got a clue. They don't know what is going on either."

- NZPA

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Feature: Bali bomb blast

Pictures from the scene of the blast

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