Volunteers help find answers

By GREG ANSLEY in BALI

This was day three for Martin O'Neill, standing in the dust and searing heat of the Denpasar morgue, watching as another load of black body bags is unloaded from a refrigerated truck.

O'Neill, a Bahasa-speaking expatriate Kiwi, is helping Jakarta embassy official Nigel Alladyce find suspected New Zealand victims of Saturday night's carnage.

One victim he had met briefly the day before the bomb exploded, exchanging greetings as teams for the Balinese rugby sevens tournament mingled socially.

Today, O'Neill and Alladyce check the number of each bag as it passes by, opening many briefly before waiting for the next in a macabre procession that extends hour after hour.

O'Neill, an articulate and compassionate father of three who has lived in Indonesia for 15 years, breaks away every now and again, overcome by the scale of the carnage. "In every one of these, in every one, there is an individual tragedy," he says.

O'Neill, originally from Hamilton, is one of the thousands of volunteers who poured in to help after terrorists detonated their car bomb outside the Sari Club in Kuta.

Most arrived in the first hours after the blast; most are still working.

O'Neill was at home with his family on Saturday night, relaxing after a day at the Balinese rugby sevens tournament and nursing a knee he had hurt playing touch football a week earlier.

They heard the explosion, but thought little of it until the phone started going berserk about an hour later.

O'Neill caught three hours' sleep, met some friends at the International School, and arrived at the Australian consulate to volunteer.

He was sent to Wangaya, a small hospital near Denpasar.

At Wangaya, his job was to find out who was there, what their conditions were, whether their conditions were critical and if they needed to be moved, and to try to find the names of relatives and friends.

Nothing had prepared O'Neill for Wangaya.

Some of the cases were relatively easy: Elizabeth, a Norwegian, who already had a friend with her; an Australian from the Gold Coast who was missing a toe but joked: "what's a toe, mate?"

Others were more serious, arriving semi-conscious or unconscious, labelled only as "Andrew", "Mr A", or "Mr D". Some were able to give a name, but nothing more.

O'Neill identified a young Canadian from his credit card and managed to get a phone number to call.

"I had a friend with me from Australia and we just dialled it and got Dad in the Yukon."

O'Neill pauses, swallows, eyes brimming: "It all got pretty personal.

"He was pretty badly burned. He went out on one of the Australian planes in the afternoon.

"He's a tough guy. He'll be okay."

In another bed was a young Australian called Andrew, who had lost half of one foot and the other leg below the knee.

O'Neill had spoken to his parents, and learned that a year previously he had broken his neck, He had medical staff put his neck in a brace.

When Andrew regained consciousness he refused medical care.

"He didn't have any legs, or he was missing big bits of them," O'Neill says.

"He pulled out all his drips and wanted to kill himself.

"I mean, I'm an engineer. I'm not equipped for this sort of stuff.

"He wanted me to help him kill himself.

"I said I couldn't do that, and we spoke about the things that are worth living for."

As O'Neill tried to persuade Andrew to live, the pain became too much.

"We said 'we're going to give you a painkiller' and we just bowled him out. We evacuated him about an hour later."

On Monday night, O'Neill and some friends - including a nurse who had been carrying out triage at the airport - met for a few drinks, "just to sort of keep it together, to get a handle on what we were doing".

Today, five days after the bomb, the agony continues.

Bali messages and latest information on New Zealanders
New Zealand travellers in Bali, and their families around the world, can exchange news via our Bali Messages page. The page also contains lists of New Zealanders in Bali and their condition.

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

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