[peaceful music]
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[waves crashing] [birds squawking]
[tense music]
[waves lapping]
[bird squawks]
[distant gun fire]
- [Dan] I've not come across anything since
that scares me anywhere near as much
as what happened in Tunisia.
[distant gun fires]
- [Shelley] It's definitely completely changed my character.
I feel very nervous about everything now
because you never know what's gonna happen.
[distant gun fires]
- [Colin] You never think it's gonna happen to you.
It's these moments in life that completely
turn everything upside down.
And we thought we were going to die.
[waves crashing] [tense music continues]
[distant birds squawking]
[birds squawking]
So,
these are
some little stones, some little pebbles.
Just some memories, really, that I keep in a trinket box.
Really goes back to my childhood with
my mum taking me and my sisters
and my brother down to our local beach
where I would be looking for what I would call magic stones.
You can see like little crystals inside.
It just reminds me of my daughter Krystal.
And you know, even today we're really close.
This key ring was given to us
when we first went to Tunisia.
So whenever we travelled,
we always put our hotel key on this key ring.
And I didn't realize what significant religious
and spiritual beliefs that this has.
It's an Islamic Hamza, which is the hand of Fatima.
She was a protector of people
and we feel safe and protected,
and spiritually, we are both attached to this.
- This is the Queen's Commendation for Bravery.
Yeah. That was from Her Majesty.
Along with that came this.
A certificate presented to me
for what happened on that day.
I don't see myself as a hero.
I think the heroes are the victims
and survivors of this incident
or any such incidents, that carry on with their lives.
I just went back and tried to help.
[waves crashing]
[brooding music]
I just love to go on holiday.
Go to the beach, the sounds of the waves.
I'd been to Tunisia the year before with Dave, my husband,
and we had such a lovely time, and we got a good tan.
We had fun.
So, yeah, when the next year came,
and Krystal had said she didn't want a birthday party
for her 18th birthday,
she said she would rather have a holiday.
- And I'd seen the photos and was quite jealous.
I had just completed my A Levels.
I was 17.
Was really excited to be finishing school.
I hadn't been on a holiday that's that, you know,
five star luxury experience of eat as much as you like,
drink as much as you like, I know I was 17,
but the idea was that in Tunisia
we could be adults and have a really good time.
- [Sharon] And this time, she said, could we take her friend Chelsea?
That's how we came to go to Tunisia.
[gentle piano music]
- I was on one particular path in life,
working in a warehouse as a forklift operator.
And I was going on holiday with my then fiancée.
We'd been together just under two years, at that point.
It was a chance to get away from day-to-day life goings
and just be on holiday and relax.
Tunisia was down to the weather.
My grandparents had been in the past and said it was a lovely country.
I guess that hotel just came down to
one of the ones that made the list.
All inclusive, close to the beach, not too far from the airport.
The kind of things you look for when you go away.
- It was coming up to my 25th birthday.
So, we wanted to do something nice.
We'd been together for around four years, I believe.
- Me and Shelley getting ourselves on our feet.
Just moved into our first rented property,
and just working at the time,
and just trying to save some money for our kitty
and to hopefully book somewhere nice to go on holiday.
We came up with Tunisia,
because it was a cheap option at the time.
It was a really lovely place to go on holiday,
so we decided to go there.
All the reviews seemed pretty good.
The hotel looked really nice.
So yeah, I didn't really need much more
persuading than that, really.
[somber music]
It was an impromptu holiday.
We weren't supposed to be going.
I think it was between Tunisia and Egypt.
One of our friends had recommended going,
but it wasn't really up to me anyway, I was only 15.
So it was my mum and stepdad's decision, ultimately.
But since our friend had recommended it, we thought, okay.
And she had told us everything is so safe.
There's like security guards.
'Cause I was always a panicker, anyway.
So that was in the back of my mind since the attack
at the Bardo museum had happened.
[somber music continues]
I've always been a worrier.
So I even went into the travel agency and asked them.
I was like, "How safe is it?
This has just happened not too long ago.
Are you sure the right precautions are in place?"
I was assured, "If an attack happened in London,
would you go to Skegness?"
And I was like, "Yeah, that makes sense."
'Cause I was determined to not be anxious. [chuckles]
It was gonna be the holiday where I get my life back,
where I try and stop being as anxious.
[gentle piano music]
[plane engines roaring]
[tires screeching]
- Got to Tunisia, everything was fine.
Arrived. Weather was lovely.
Straight to the hotel.
It was a nice arrival, nice and simple, check in,
and straight to, um, straight to the bar.
[gentle music continues]
The hotel was really grand.
So when we pulled up,
we were like, "Yes, this is nice.
We're gonna enjoy this."
- It was the biggest hotel I've ever seen in my life.
It was extraordinary. It was massive.
Everything was marble and beautiful.
Just amazing, really.
[gentle piano music continues]
My wife Tracy and I,
who had been there, the two previous years.
The rooms were clean and tidy.
The food was good. The service was good.
It was a lovely place and it was a happy place.
We felt safe and comfortable there.
[brooding music]
- It was just such a lovely hotel. We were so impressed.
It was just such a lovely place.
The room was overlooking the beach.
So yeah, it looked fantastic.
And then walking down there,
you kind of walked through the pool area
and then it was a lovely walk up to the beach then.
So yeah, I remember walking there for the first time.
And there was lovely palm trees
and just a really lovely set up.
It was really nice.
It was just the nicest hotel.
The beach with all the activities on the beach,
and the pool was superb and the food was great,
and it was just a really good hotel.
We were coming towards the end of the holiday
and nothing seemed different to any other holiday
we'd had at that hotel.
[distant man singing in foreign language]
- We had previously visited Tunisia on a couple of occasions
and had no problems at all.
Found the people fantastic.
[distant man singing in foreign language]
But once you get outside the complex of the hotel,
you can see the diversity in the country.
There is, for us travelers, where we can have everything.
And then no more than a mile from the hotel, you can see
there's a lot of people that don't have a lot at all.
There's an area on the map now that was a red area
and it wasn't safe for tourists to travel.
So, that was a little bit of a sign to me
that I didn't really realize that,
that the country had some problems.
[cat meows]
[waves lapping]
[ominous music]
We had already planned that Friday.
Me and Dave would go to the beach.
And the girls didn't wanna go to the beach.
They didn't wanna get sand on, when they're sunbathing,
on their suntan cream.
I hate the beach. [chuckles]
Sorry, but I do. I don't like the sand.
I don't like the sea.
I've never enjoyed beaches.
So we played darts one day, volleyball.
I'm not a sporty person, but I really wanted to play volleyball,
because it's what you do.
You get involved in all of the activities on holiday.
[birds chirping] [ominous music continues]
- I just wanted to sunbathe and read my book.
And so we walked, found a couple of sunbeds,
and I said to Dave, "Oh, what about those ones over there?"
He said, "No, no, there's some over here,
and you can watch us play volleyball."
Which was good, because no one was really
in my line of sight.
[distant people cheering and laughing]
So yeah, that was quite fun watching them,
while I was just relaxing.
- Had a really fun time playing volleyball.
It was really hot.
I was a bit hot and bothered, but it was still
really, really fun throwing the ball around,
playing with Chelsea and my stepdad.
And the game had finished, but we thought,
let's go back to the bar, grab Mum a wine,
I'll get a drink, we can cool down
and then just chill for the rest of the day.
- Most people just in front of me on the beach,
were just sleeping, you know, just relaxing.
There wasn't really any noise. It was just really quiet.
[dark music]
I was on the far right.
So, if you come out of the hotel,
you hit the sunbeds on the far right,
and I just walked forward to the front,
because that's my usual spot, if you like, our usual spot.
We used to choose that spot
because you had a clear view of the sea and the beach.
And I love to people watch, watching the world go by.
- It was on the seventh day of our 10-day holiday.
We were, as you come out the hotel,
we were the right side of the sunbeds.
My wife will have hers in the full sun, all of the time.
I'm not a particular sun lover.
I'm either reading a book or listening to music,
which I was then.
I had my headphones on.
It was a great place to chill out.
It was a very, very normal morning.
Met some other Welsh people out there
and we'd all gone down to the beach together that morning.
And the weather obviously was fantastic.
And then just sort of chilled out on the beach,
enjoyed the sun, and then decided that we were gonna
go into the water on inflatable lilos.
[somber piano music]
I would say I'm a bit of a water baby.
Whether it's warm water or cold water,
I definitely enjoy being in water.
We started off very close to the shore
and then sort of went a bit further out
and without really realizing it, and I looked back,
we'd actually floated out of our area and into the next hotel's area.
[somber music continues]
So we'd been there for five days,
and so it was actually my 25th birthday.
So we were just chilling at the beach.
There was the walkway coming down from the Marhaba,
and we were just on the sunbeds,
just over to the sides there.
It was Shelley's birthday, so,
she wanted to do the jet skiing.
I was happy to do that as well.
She also wanted to do the power gliding.
I was a bit apprehensive about that.
- Ben doesn't like heights, so I did that myself.
I can just remember going up, being in the sky
and you could just see over the whole of Tunisia.
It was beautiful.
It was just nice just to feel relaxed, calm,
away from everything, and just safe.
[dark music]
[car engine rumbles]
[car door clicks open]
[car door slams]
[car door clicks open]
[car door slams]
[dark music continues]
[dark music intensifies]
[birds chirping]
Dave brought the drink back.
I went to drink from my wine and
just out of the corner of my eye,
I just saw this flash of light.
It's like, I don't know, like super bright,
like lightning type thing,
but I don't know, I just kinda turned to it,
and um, yeah.
It was...
It was the,
the terrorist.
[gun fires]
It took a second to register.
I'm thinking, "That's a high velocity rifle."
And then suddenly, I ducked down,
to look through the umbrellas
and then it went to rapid fire.
The terrorist had turned it to automatic fire.
[distant gun fire rapidly]
- I thought it was fireworks. I thought that's what it was.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
And then it didn't sound like fireworks.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
- And you could hear people screaming.
And looking back to the sand, you could see
the sand flying up into the air
where the bullets were hitting the sand.
[distant gun fires rapidly] [dark music continues]
- And I could see something was going on to my left.
Couldn't quite work it out.
And I saw my wife get off the sunbed,
as she was on the left, look at me,
and visually say to me, "Effing run, effing run."
So I took my headphones off,
and I caught a glimpse of my wife running up the beach.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
So, I just went down on the sand.
So, between the sunbed.
So, I was laying there and Dave was there.
We just kind of both went down at the same time.
[gun fires rapidly]
The terrorist just...
Just started
firing at people. like...
And um...
He was standing there, right in front of all the sunbeds.
And then the noise was just, it was something else.
Just...
Boom, boom, boom, boom, like that.
And I could feel it.
I could feel the sand
jumping up.
I just bent down, grabbed Tracy,
and hoisted her off the sunbed and she said, "It's fireworks."
"It's fireworks." [chuckles] "It's not."
And literally, as she said that, I could then hear
the missile, the bullets whizzing past my ears.
Literally, they were that close that they were skimming past us.
- I felt the power of the bullet
and I had the sensation of it actually passing under my arm.
- As I was running with Tracy, I looked back.
I couldn't see the gunman,
but I could just see people going down
and I could hear the noise.
It's a very distinctive noise, of people being shot.
- You could just hear like screaming and it was just a mess,
to be honest, it was just chaos, it was just...
Like, you...
I just thought I was gonna die any second.
You go into
fight or flight mode.
You don't want to be where you are.
You know you're in a bad spot and panic sets in.
And the only thing I could think to do from there was just
to get back to shore as quickly as possible.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
I had to run.
[tense music]
Then I saw an upturned boat,
and I thought if I can crawl or run to that,
and hide behind that, you're gonna be safe.
And in those split seconds behind the boat,
I contemplated, like everybody does,
you know, help me, somebody help me.
What do I do? Do I stay where I am?
Is there a risk to me? I didn't know.
I didn't know.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
So, I ran hell for leather down the beach.
And jumped into the sea.
We were just sitting on the beach,
and I started seeing on my left,
rolls of sunbeds and people just rolling like a wave,
a tsunami coming towards me.
- Everybody was screaming, running. Just sheer panic.
Nobody really knew exactly what was going on,
but everybody just knew we needed to go.
[hurried footsteps pattering] [distant gun fire rapidly]
My brain was so overloaded,
but I do remember, when I was running from the beach,
down that narrow lane,
that's when I heard one or two big bangs,
and I said, like, "Yeah, let's pick up the pace now."
[hurried footsteps pattering]
[distant gun fires rapidly]
- The person I was with had already started to run
and then I'm torn in my own head
because I can see a woman in front of me, lying on the sand.
And
I remember trying to drag her, trying to move her.
There's still people screaming, there's still gunshots going off.
And all I can remember is trying to move her.
And after a few seconds, I realized that she wasn't alive.
And I remember looking down at my hands
and they were covered in blood.
I just had to get out there then,
and then that's when I just ran.
- Dave grabbed my wrist really hard and said,
"We need to run, babe."
[distant gun fires rapidly]
So,
I got up and
started following him.
I had no idea where we were going.
[distant gun fire rapidly]
I fell over.
Dave realized that I wasn't with him,
and he ran back and he kind of grabbed my arms
and verbally picked me up and said, "We need to...
Come on. We need to go."
I said, "I can't, I just can't."
I couldn't hardly talk. I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't...
I didn't know what to do.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
I thought Krystal was by the pool.
And so I was really upset
because I couldn't tell her that I was safe
and not to come looking for me.
[suspenseful music]
- Your first thought isn't, "Oh, terrorist attack, gunfire."
And then it escalated really quickly.
It went from more of a pop, pop, pop, to extreme gunfire.
And someone shouted, "Get down.
That's gunshots." So everyone hit the floor.
And then they shouted, "Run."
- And then came the screams and the people running,
and that's when we thought, "Oh, my God.
Something's happening."
And somebody shouted, "He's got a gun."
- And I just remember one of the guys that worked there, his face,
he was looking back and it was all in slow motion.
And I just darted. I just left.
[distant gun fires rapidly] [suspenseful music continues]
[distant gun fires rapidly]
We started to run towards the hotel
and then I suddenly thought,
my mum and Dave are on the beach,
and I wanted to go back.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
- It was chaos. Everybody was running towards the hotel.
So, I run, but I didn't realize the rest of the family
wasn't with me at that point.
Got up to the main doors of the hotel and turned around
and saw they were still by the sunbeds.
- I just remember thinking, "Oh, my God.
Okay, I need to get out of here."
I kind of circled back around to where the main steps were
and I was at the top and I had realised I'm alone.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
Was hysterical for like five seconds,
and then I just kept thinking, "I need to survive."
[distant gun fires rapidly] [suspenseful music continues]
- I think this is one of the hardest things
for me to talk about.
Knowing that my mum was on the beach
and I didn't know whether she was dead or alive,
was really hard.
And I was desperately trying to go back and get her.
But Chelsea wouldn't let me.
She grabbed me and said, "We need to run."
So, I did as she said. [chuckles]
And she dragged me into the hotel.
Literally dragged me by force into
the reception of the hotel.
[hurried footsteps clacking]
There was loads of us. We didn't really know where to go.
Where we're safe.
When we got into the reception,
some staff had opened up a door.
They were ushering us in, telling us,
"It's safe in here, let's go."
So, they took us in and
we just followed everybody.
[hurried footsteps clacking] [distant gun firing]
I was more concerned about
where the rest of the family was because
obviously I'd got to the hotel,
but I didn't know if they had.
They could've been anywhere.
You just get through it, the best way you can,
and that's to almost not believe it's happening to you.
[hurried footsteps clacking]
- There were several flights of stairs.
People were just running.
We had no idea where we were going
or where they were leading us, but we were trusting
that they were taking us somewhere safe.
And we all came to a natural stop in a corridor
where there were several offices off the sides.
I was in a corridor with about,
I'm gonna say 15 more people,
but where we were, the offices were made of glass.
So we were thinking, "Okay, if he comes up here,
we have nowhere to hide."
[distant gun fires rapidly]
- I needed to take a minute because I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't do anything other than worry
about where my mum was.
And I was just, all I remember saying is, "My mum's dead.
My mum's dead. Where is my mum?"
[dark string music]
Our hotel room was probably
45 seconds walk from the beach.
I probably made it in 25.
And I just opened the door, grabbed Tracy,
threw her in the room
and stood there for a second thinking, "Well, what do I do?
What do I do?"
So, I just said, "Please lay on the floor.
Don't make a noise.
Don't open the door till you hear my voice. I'm going back."
And I just literally slammed the door behind me
and run back to the beach.
[hurried footsteps clacking] [dark music continues]
[distant gun fires rapidly]
- I remember sort of running up the beach
onto a walkway that led from the beach to the hotel gates.
[distant gun fires rapidly] [dark music continues]
[hurried footsteps pattering on sand]
The sort of overriding thought was, "Is he behind me?
Is he in front of me?
Is there more of them gonna come around the corner?"
Because you don't stop to grab your shoes,
you don't stop to grab anything.
It was just, you know, run as fast as possible.
[hurried footsteps pattering]
[distant gun fires rapidly] [dark music continues]
And the ground was really hot.
I realized actually I burned my feet here.
But I had to carry on.
[hurried footsteps pattering]
I guess at that moment, I was expecting to be shot myself.
All you're thinking is the worst
and trying to get back to some place of safety.
[hurried footsteps pattering]
[water rumbles]
[dark music]
I was out at sea.
I wasn't really getting very far.
And then I started to feel I was getting into some deeper water.
My heart was pounding. I could feel my adrenaline rushing.
And I was struggling in the sea.
I'll admit it. I thought I was gonna drown.
Okay? I did.
I think I had swum out a bit too far.
I was in depth.
I think I panicked.
[water rumbles]
And I prayed.
And I outstretched my right leg and there was a rock,
and I managed to pull myself onto the rock,
which lifted me out the water.
And I did see a couple of boats
that were just going up and down.
One of them was Mohammed,
the guy that was the water sports guy at the next hotel.
So, I started signaling to him
and luckily, he did manage to spot me,
and he came alongside and pulled me onto the boat.
I looked back at the beach and I could see that, you know,
there was
more than one or two people that unfortunately were,
were not gonna go home on that day.
[waves crashing]
And Mohammed took me up the beach to the hotel next door,
and I got outta the boat and,
and I started worrying about where my wife was.
[suspenseful music]
[footsteps clacking] [suspenseful music continues]
And then we heard gunshots again
and it was pretty clear that we were not safe where we were.
We were in an office with a glass front
and it was clear that that wouldn't
stop anything from getting to us.
So, Chelsea grabbed me again
and we looked to find somewhere else to hide.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
- Having never heard a gunfire before, the noise,
the noise was louder than I'd ever thought possible.
- And eventually, it got to the point where we stopped hearing gunfire
and we heard screaming heading our way.
- We went back into the original corridor
and pushed past people.
We needed to find somewhere.
We were desperate to get out of the way of the man
that was coming down the corridor with a gun.
So we went down the corridor
and ended up barricading ourselves into an office.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
- It was quite an open-plan room
and there was windows, both sides of it.
So, it was quite bright in there.
And it was a hot day.
There was no air con in the room, as far as I can remember.
I was crouched behind a desk.
There was two young girls in front of me
and then this mother and daughter sort of just behind me.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
- There were already maybe 10 people inside the office,
already hiding underneath a desk.
But we made space, we forced ourselves under this desk.
I was holding onto the bottom of a wheelie office chair,
somehow thinking that that would protect me, if he was to come in.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
- You knew there was danger really close to you at that point,
but again, you didn't know what was going on,
or how the danger was gonna unfold.
- But more and more people came in and somebody decided
that enough's enough, we're gonna shut the door.
And then everybody hid and we were silent.
We didn't wanna make a sound. We didn't wanna be found.
We didn't want him to know that we were in there.
I had all of these really extreme thoughts
going through my head about what was gonna happen to me,
if he found us.
- And I just remember thinking, "If he comes in here,
he's gonna shoot me and it's gonna be fast.
I'm gonna die."
[cell phone rings]
- [Krystal] Somebody's phone started ringing
obnoxiously loudly in that room,
and everybody was desperate for it to stop.
- And it just felt like we were sitting ducks at that point,
because he was there, we had nowhere to go.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
I remember asking someone if we were gonna die
and I was expecting a "No."
And he was like, "I, I don't know. I couldn't tell you."
That's when the grenade went off.
[explosion roars]
[high-pitched tone rings]
And I just remember my ears went.
The whole room just smelled like gunpowder.
I went deaf.
I could feel my mouth moving,
but I didn't know what I was saying.
I could smell
gas and
I could smell metal.
And
my sound was coming back
and I could hear people screaming and shouting for help.
[distant explosion thumps]
Dave and I got to another hotel.
I remember being scared still,
because you could still hear shooting.
[somber orchestral music]
But then a manager came and said,
"Everyone needs to go to a room."
And um...
Everyone just went, you know?
And it's just me and Dave,
kind of one of the last people left.
Then I said, "We haven't got a room.
This isn't our hotel."
And he just kind of dismissed me and said,
"Just go to anyone's room."
So we just followed a young couple
that were running up towards some stairs and just said,
"Can we come with you guys?"
And they just said, "Yeah."
And then the young couple were phoning their family
and when they finished talking to their family, I said,
"I need to phone Krystal,
and I need to tell her not to go to the beach."
Then I realized when she gave me the phone
that I didn't know her number
and I didn't know how to tell her not to go to the beach.
[somber orchestral music continues]
And...
You know, I kind of was punishing myself.
Thinking, "What kind of mother doesn't even know their
daughter's telephone number when they need to know it?"
[ominous music]
- We got back to our hotel in the Royal Kenz.
Everybody was just very panicked.
Nobody knew what was going on.
Everyone in tears.
Children to full grown adults, just...
Are we safe in the lobby? I...
We didn't know, you know?
- So we were advised to go to our rooms
and we then started to move the wardrobes and things
just in front of windows,
just so that we were completely barricaded in our room.
- At that point, I was just sitting there,
in the hotel bed, just in fear,
waiting for that door to be kicked open and to be shot.
That was very much at the forefront of my mind.
That was my biggest fear at that point.
[suspenseful music]
[distant gun fires rapidly]
I had left Tracy in our room
to make sure that she was safe.
[distant waves crashing]
[distant gun fires rapidly] [suspenseful music continues]
When I got to the beach, the gunfire was still evident.
I run along to where my sunbed was
and I could just see bodies and blood.
And that's when I found a woman
badly injured on her sunbed.
And as I had noticed
that her hand, her forearm,
was probably two meters away from her body.
It had been blown off completely.
So I just rocked her, touched her gently.
I said, "My name's Alan, do you speak English?"
And she said, "Yes, I'm Cheryl."
I said, "I'm here. I'm gonna try and help you."
She'd obviously lost a significant amount of blood,
but she was coherent.
We were engaging, we were speaking.
She was cooperating with me.
So I gave her some water and she cleaned her face up
and I poured some water over her mouth.
I noticed there were some towels and there was some scarves.
So I literally did what I could with Cheryl.
I just wrapped her arm with the scarf
and then I noticed her leg was bleeding quite badly.
So, I pulled the towel down
and I wrapped the towel around her leg.
But all the time I was doing this, she was saying,
"How's my husband?
My husband Steven. Check him, please."
And I could see he was on the other side of the sunbed.
And unfortunately, I could see that
his injuries were unsurvivable.
He'd been shot several times.
So, I said to Cheryl, "Look, do you want me to tell you?"
"Please." I said, "Are you sure?"
She said, "Please tell me."
I said, "Unfortunately, he's gone."
[somber music]
I said, "Look, I need to get you away from here,
in case he comes back."
She said, "No.
I'm not leaving Steven."
So, I literally tipped over some sunbeds, so she was hidden,
had the terrorist return that route.
Then my thoughts then went to Tracy.
"I need to go back to Tracy."
[hurried footsteps clacking]
So I run back to our room, I'm knocking on the door,
banging the door, "Tracy, open the door, it's me.
I'm here."
I'm thinking, "Why is she not opening the door?"
And I'm banging and banging, then I looked down,
and there was a post-it note on the floor that said,
"I'm scared, I've gone to reception."
[dark piano music] [distant gun fires rapidly]
- I don't know how long we were in the room for.
It had been what felt like a really long time,
and we could still hear gunshots off in the distance.
But throughout that whole experience,
there was one person who, other than Chelsea, supported me,
and that was Karl.
He held my hands and repeatedly said to me,
"It's gonna be okay. We're gonna find your mum."
- It was just a natural response to reach out
and you could see how scared she was.
So you reach out and held her hand as a comfort to her,
but it was almost comfort to you at the same time.
He said, "I've lost my family too,
but we're gonna be okay."
And that gave me hope that we were gonna get out
and we were gonna be okay.
Sorry.
[suspenseful music]
[distant people yelling] [suspenseful music continues]
[people yelling in foreign language]
[people chattering in foreign language]
[people yelling in foreign language]
[distant explosion bangs]
[people yelling in foreign language]
[gun fires]
[explosion roars]
[holidaymaker speaks foreign language]
[holidaymaker pants]
[holidaymaker speaks foreign language]
[holidaymaker pants]
[holidaymaker speaks foreign language]
[distant waves crashing] [footsteps pattering on sand]
[holidaymaker pants]
[holidaymaker speaks foreign language]
[holidaymaker pants]
[holidaymaker speaks foreign language]
[holidaymaker yells in foreign language]
[holidaymaker pants]
[distant people yelling]
[holidaymaker speaks foreign language]
[distant waves crashing] [hurried footsteps pattering]
[dark music]
- Going into the gated area of the next-door hotel,
I saw people hiding in different places
and there was confusion and panic going on.
And as I went out of the lobby,
a guy ran straight across me.
I thought, "God, what's going on?"
I mean, that really did scare me.
I didn't know if he was another gunman,
an accomplice or whatever.
And I did catch that he was wearing a hotel uniform in the end.
And he ran to my right and jumped over a wall
and it reminded me there's a footpath that way
that I can get to the main road.
And I thought, "That's where I'm gonna go
and see if I can get some help or do something."
And that's when I got to the wall,
and just the other side was the gunman.
Luckily, he had his back to me.
Above one of the shops on the roof terrace,
there was a guy, a great Tunisian man on the roof,
just throwing tiles, ceramic tiles, roof tiles off his roof,
to try and distract the gunman, you know?
[tiles smashing]
[distant dog barks] [dark music continues]
[guns firing rapidly]
[people yelling] [guns firing rapidly]
[people yelling in foreign language]
The gunfire was incredible.
It felt like hours, at the time,
but no doubt, it was probably only about 15 or 20 seconds.
[people yelling in foreign language]
[guns firing rapidly]
[people yelling in foreign language]
[somber acoustic guitar music]
[somber acoustic guitar music continues]
We heard the gunfire,
and then there was a knock on the door,
and someone came in and said, "It's okay to go out."
It was the Tunisian police.
As soon as we saw that uniform,
Chelsea dragged me off the floor
and we went to get out of the room.
[somber string music]
I didn't expect to see what I saw outside of the door.
There was blood all over the floor.
There were bodies.
And I will never forget the looks on their faces.
- my initial memory is, just outside the office door,
there was blood on the floor.
So someone had obviously been hurt or killed,
and I'd left my shoes by the pool,
so I had to walk through the blood without shoes on.
I saw the first body was a woman.
And the way she was sat really confused me.
At that point, I had never lost anyone in my family.
Never dealt with death.
And I was like, "Why is she just sat there?
This is a really serious thing.
She like, she needs to go."
And then I realized I was stood in blood and it was hers.
And that's when I was like, "Okay."
- We walked through the blood and we walked to the stairs
back down to the reception where
we had run from.
Amidst the chaos in the corridor,
I met
a middle-aged woman and her daughter who
were supporting me as I kept chanting, "My mum is dead.
I don't know my mum is. I need to find my mum.
My parents were on the beach. My parents are dead."
That's all I could say was, "My parents are dead."
And they kept telling me, "We're gonna find them.
We'll find your parents. It's gonna be okay."
[helicopter blades whirring]
[sirens wailing]
- Dave and I went back to the hotel, Imperial Marhaba.
When we got there, it was horrendous.
The noise was horrendous.
So the noise on the beach was one thing,
but then it went quiet and then when we went back,
the noise was even something else, like the sound
of all the helicopters and all the commotion going on,
and all the vehicles.
People screaming, people crying.
People looking for their loved ones.
It was just absolutely chaotic.
The whole situation.
- I thought I better retrace my footsteps,
to see if I can find my wife.
[dark music]
And then I could see what unfolded
to be nothing more than a massacre, on the beach that day.
It was just a pure massacre.
Most of the bodies on the beach were covered over with towels.
So, it was difficult for me to identify
if it was my wife or not.
But I, I knew what she was wearing,
so I could see by her size and shape
if it was my wife or not my wife.
Luckily, none of those were her.
So, I still had that hope that she was gonna be okay.
[gentle orchestral music]
There was just hundreds of people
coming down the stairways.
And then I saw Tracy,
and I wasn't in a good state
because I had blood and sand on me.
So I think initially she thought I've been injured.
I very quickly told her that I hadn't.
It wasn't my blood.
But we just need to get back to the safety of our room.
- As soon as I got down from behind reception to the lobby,
I saw my mum.
She was right there.
And I don't remember this, but she hugged me,
but apparently I couldn't even hug her back
because I was just so in shock.
And she was checking me, and I was like,
"Why are you checking me?"
And I was just covered in blood
and she was making sure that it wasn't mine.
I prayed so many times that day.
I really did pray hard.
And I got to the back of the hotel,
and I prayed that I'd see my wife again.
And I looked through the glass doors
and there I could see her with her bikini, in reception.
And then from being fight or flight and everything,
this was just pure elation,
that I just ran through the corridor.
We just grabbed each other and just cried our eyes out that,
you know, that we had got through it, you know?
- And then we saw my mum and Dave. [chuckles]
They came through the doors of the hotel.
And I've never felt relief like it.
It was like a scene out of a Hollywood movie,
when you're running in slow motion to somebody.
And it...
I've never hugged my stepdad as tight as I did.
And then my mum and it was...
It felt, at that moment, that it was over,
because I'd been reunited with my mum.
- She said she phoned me so many times and I didn't answer.
But I have to remember that everything that happened that day,
or everything I did that day, or we did,
was the right thing to do, 'cos we all came home.
[birds chirping]
- I was at the local park with my children,
just pushing them on the swing,
doing normal mum and daughter things,
and that was when I received the text from my dad,
just to ask if I'd heard from Nan,
which I replied, "No, why?" What's going on?"
And he explained that there had been a terror attack in Tunisia.
It was her eighth year going there.
I think she liked the food,
she found the locals very friendly.
She loved just laying in the sun, having a sherry,
maybe a dip in the pool,
just spending quality time with her partner.
I knew it was the day before she was due to come home,
and I just assumed she was packing,
and doing her last bit of shopping.
And then my dad messaged me again saying
that it was actually the hotel my nan was staying at.
That was the hotel that was attacked.
So then the panic did set in a little bit,
especially as she wasn't answering my phone calls,
my text messages.
And I think by then, even he sort of had the fear that
she probably wasn't hiding somewhere, and by now,
she would've come out and made contact.
[dark music]
On the second night, around 2:00 AM,
my daughter's doll crib started rocking
and playing music on its own, which was really strange.
And literally a split second after that,
I received a phone call from my dad, and I just knew then,
I just knew he's ringing at 2:00 AM, it's not gonna be good news.
So, I answered the phone
and he just said straight away, "Nan's been killed.
She's been shot. She's gone."
I don't think I'll ever, ever, ever forget that phone call,
and it was like I knew before I even answered it.
I just knew.
[birds chirping]
[leaves rustling]
- I remember thinking, "I just want to get out of here."
I just want to be at home."
My mum kept saying,
"I won't be able to relax until we touch English soil."
Everyone was in a panic, you know?
No one knew what to do or what was going on.
The hotel staff were trying to do their best,
but it was just chaos.
- And then shortly after, we were called, and said,
"Look, we are gonna take you to the airport.
You're gonna get an armed escort to the airport,
and we're gonna put you on a plane."
- I went straight up to the hotel room, grab the bags,
get them down in reception, check out of the hotel,
so that you know, once that bus arrives,
you can get out straight onto it, and you're away.
[bus engine humming] [helicopter blades whirring]
That was a nerve wracking journey,
to get back to the airport because you didn't know,
there could've been a gunman on that road,
waiting to ambush the buses.
And the entire coach journey,
I had my hand luggage up against the window,
in case somebody was gonna shoot at the bus.
- Nobody knew what to say to one another.
Everybody just sat in silence.
- And I am not gonna lie, I was, you know, scared.
- Every bus had a mini bus full of soldiers alongside,
and there was the helicopters overhead
following each bus as well.
[helicopter blades whirring]
But that in itself was sort of, in a way, more terrifying
to know that if they're putting that much effort into it,
what are they expecting, something more?
[brakes squeaking]
[plane engines whirring]
- I remember sitting down on that plane
and just thinking, "We're going home."
I just felt so relieved to be on the plane,
and knowing that we were gonna be going home to safety.
[plane engines whirring]
I remember getting on the aircraft,
finding a seat, sitting down.
And I woke up when the wheels hit the runway
in Manchester airport,
thinking...
not really knowing where I was,
and then I realized that we'd arrived,
which was a relief in itself.
[waves crashing] [gentle piano music]
- Just so glad to put the key in the door, when we got home.
And um...
Yeah, Bella,
our German Shepherd.
Yeah, so happy to see us.
I just kind of was on my hands and knees
and just like, "I made it." [chuckles]
[birds chirping]
- They'd arranged transport for us to take us home,
and going past our local church.
So I opened the door very quietly, went in,
and unbelievably, the vicar was mentioning about
that they thought there was someone in the village
that had been involved in what had happened in Tunisia
and could the congregation pray for us.
What can you say?
You know?
It's just like everything aligned for me.
It highlighted something inside me
that I'd never felt before.
That things were gonna have to change for me.
- I just thought I could carry on as normal,
and I just tried to get through the week,
and take each day as it comes and I didn't get
a lot of sleep that week anyway,
due to night terrors and lying there, wide awake,
asking myself "what if" questions,
from what had happened and what I'd seen.
And then to get a few hours sleep,
and have to recall it in detail to counter-terrorism police.
I guess that was kind of almost the final straw
that broke me, emotionally and mentally.
They left, and again, I just tried to carry on as normal,
and tried to tough it out.
- I wanted to get back to school immediately.
It happened on the Friday. I went back to school on the Tuesday.
Clearly, I was still in a lot of shock
and I just remember everyone being like,
"Millie, are you okay?"
It was just normal to me.
I didn't feel anything different.
But clearly I was in shock,
to go through something that horrendous on the Friday
and then on the Tuesday be back at school
and then it just all kind of hit me.
[distant explosion roars]
I struggled to be in crowds.
I was hypervigilant of everything.
[distant gun fires rapidly]
I had a panic attack.
I've had anxiety but never a panic attack, before.
My heart was racing, I couldn't breathe.
My hands were pins and needley,
and after that, I was at the hospital,
every single day for about a week,
because I constantly thought I was dying of something,
and I guess it was everything just catching up to me.
[birds chirping]
[birds squawking]
- I didn't feel safe, until I stepped inside the house.
And saw my dog and felt like I was home.
But that feeling of safety doesn't last. [chuckles]
And a friend of mine sent me a message on Facebook saying,
"Have you seen this?
And she said, "This was in Rome airport."
So the headline is, "Terrorism:
The Shockwave of a Bloody Friday".
And I remember feeling really angry
that my face was on the cover of a newspaper,
blood behind it.
You know, recording the most traumatic incident of my life
without my consent,
without my knowledge that it had been taken,
and shared around the world.
I didn't wanna be at home
because it was all over the news.
It was all over the news, on every program, on the radio.
If it wasn't happening in Tunisia, it was happening elsewhere.
And I didn't like crowded places.
I didn't like, you know, trains.
I started to save water.
So, you know, I got a water butt, and um,
and my husband thought it was just for me
to water the plants, to save the planet and such, but um,
it was because I thought if we get our water cut off,
I've got a water supply, so, I um...
I'd ordered things off Amazon, like um,
Ration, blood packs,
and I was hiding all this as well.
So I was trying to hide it in the greenhouse.
So I knew, I knew that I needed to get some help,
because it was, it was getting extreme, how I was behaving.
- I finished work on the Saturday morning.
That was my last night shift for that week.
And I came home, parked the car outside the house
and I broke and I just sat in the car and cried my eyes out.
I was mentally done.
I was broken.
And that's kind of when I realized that I needed help.
I wasn't gonna just be able to grind it out and tough it out
and everything would be back to normal.
That was the... It's kind of a big moment for me, then.
[plane engines roaring]
[tires screeching]
[plane engines whirring]
[somber string music]
I do remember thinking Nan deserved
to be brought back in style, and she was.
[somber string music continues]
But it was really, really hard,
seeing her being carried off,
thinking she should have been coming back from her holiday
on a TUI flight and happy as Larry with a suntan,
but no, she's coming back in an RAF plane and a coffin.
It was just so overwhelming.
[footsteps clacking]
But I was just almost glad she was back.
I felt like she was here, even though she wasn't in person.
[somber string music continues]
So after she was brought back,
they put all the victims in a room, their own room,
and gave the families the opportunity to
go and say our last goodbyes, I guess.
Sort of when I got close up and had that moment with her in the room,
the feelings then changed to grief
and "I can't believe what's happened"
and "is she really in there"
and all the other questions that go round in your head.
[somber string music continues]
[engines revving]
[birds chirping]
Then we had to have the funeral.
But it was really nice hearing everyone's accounts of Nan
in the church and there were some giggles
'cause she was a hilarious person,
but obviously lots of tears as well.
[somber orchestral music]
[birds chirping]
And then it was following on to the crematorium,
which was just close family then.
So it was just a few of us
and I think that was the hardest part of it all,
just because obviously once the service is done,
they close the curtain and I was just thinking, "That's it.
The curtain's closing on my nan's life,
and it shouldn't have been now."
She loved life and she had so much more life to live.
So to see that curtain closing on her,
knowing that someone else
has made that decision for her, that was...
Not only was I absolutely broken,
but I was really, really angry at that point.
But yeah, I've just never felt
so many different emotions in such a short amount of time.
I feel really angry
that the terrorists did this.
Selfishly, this was my holiday. [chuckles]
This was my holiday to celebrate my 18th birthday,
and he nearly took my mum from me,
and that makes me really angry.
I
also feel really sad
that he was in a position to do this.
That he was misled or made to believe in some way
that this was the right thing to do.
You know, if he was still alive, I'd want to know why.
Why did you want to do it? Why did you choose this?
Why then?
[birds chirping] [somber orchestral music]
Is someone to blame?
You know, I'm sort of
lower-class English white, you know.
Likes a bit of football, the usual stuff.
You know, gonna be honest about it.
Most people think once you've had something
like this happen to you,
it will just quite easily make you typecast
just about everybody.
So, I've really tried hard not to blinker myself
and that led me to the path of seeing,
going to the Woking mosque,
and meeting a great guy, the Imam.
So, he said, you know, "What can I do for you?"
So, sat down, had a cup of tea.
I had explained what had happened to me,
and I just had questions.
For me to understand and learn more,
why someone would do this.
Getting an automatic weapon
and trying to take people's lives.
So, what religion, as far as I was concerned,
would find that acceptable?
And he's very open and honest.
And we had great, lengthy discussions about, you know,
religious beliefs, Islam, extremism,
whether it's far right or Islamic, or any type of terrorism.
And I feel now,
I'm getting,
benefit is the wrong word,
but I can understand more about the world
and everything around me now, because of his conversation.
[gentle music]
- The attack really gave me some perspective.
So it was about a year and a half later
that a charity called Strength To Strength
flew me out to New York,
and it's survivors against terrorism.
So whether that be someone that was injured,
a child of a first responder,
someone that had lost someone,
someone that had been in a terrorist attack.
Pretty much covered all the bases.
And I got there,
and it was just...
It was so surreal.
We could just sit down and talk about it like it was nothing
because it was all so normal to us.
We could have a conversation without crying,
and that's what made me want to move to New York.
So I did it.
It wasn't a big decision for me at all.
It was what I needed to do.
I wasn't anxious about it because I'd been through worse.
I knew it was what was best for me.
[gentle music continues]
[birds squawking]
- 2019 was the first time I plucked up courage
to go on another holiday.
We just stayed in a small cosy like hotel, and um...
Yeah.
I found out I had breast cancer.
And I said, "This is the first time for a few years
that I've managed to book a holiday and fly.
So, just make sure my surgery's not on that date",
'cause I really wanted to go.
So, yeah. I was proud.
I was proud that I was able to do that.
But yeah, cancer and cancer's treatment has
kind of shifted my focus
from being scared of terrorists to, you know,
what I need to deal with today.
In a way, Tunisia and being hyper alert
could have helped me because I'm not just alert to noises,
and things that are going on outside.
I'm alert to what goes on in my body as well.
I'd very much like to stay alive for as long as I can,
hopefully to see grandchildren.
[Sharon chuckles]
[somber music]
I don't see myself as a hero.
I went back 'cause I felt it was the right thing to do.
Cheryl was the real hero in this, you know?
She saw her husband shot and she survived and pulled through
and returned to work.
And I do have her permission
to read this very private letter.
"Dear Alan, I'm writing to thank you for all the help
you gave me on the beach on that horrific day.
You cannot imagine how relieved I was
to hear a friendly English voice amongst all the chaos.
You put your own life at risk to come and help me and my husband,
even though there were still shots being fired.
You broke the news to me gently as you could that Steven was dead,
even though I knew in my heart that that was the case.
You said your wife was back at your hotel
and she must have been going frantic for your safety.
Again, what a brave thing you did."
[somber music continues]
A lot of time has passed.
There's a lot of water under the bridge now.
I hope people will remember and understand and respect
the survivors on that horrible day.
We got married, September 2018.
It's about three years after the attack.
It was a beautiful day. We got married in a manor house.
We had all of our family there and friends.
We've had two children since.
So we've got a little boy and a little girl.
But every year that my birthday comes around,
I know that it was that awful day and what happened.
So the thought is always there.
[warm orchestral music]
- It's quite, quite a strange thing when you look back.
That was a really small part of your life and it's shaped
who I am today,
and the reason I have the resilience
and I guess that attitude of,
"Yeah, whatever it is, I can face it and I'll go with it."
When I look back, it goes right back to then.
I was probably too hard on myself.
I expected too much of myself
and I didn't help enough that day.
That was something I punished myself for.
And that ultimately led me to the career choice I made,
which was to join the fire service.
Once I got through the really tough period that first year,
and felt like mentally I was in a good place too,
to make a decision to do something like that,
to start that journey of beginning to help people more.
[gentle piano music]
- So there are some very positive things going on
in my life at the moment.
I am currently 31 weeks pregnant, which is amazing.
I have a husband and a house and a beautiful dog and a cat.
I think there'll be a fear when it comes to when he's older.
I'll want to wrap him in bubble wrap, and I can't,
just because of what I've been through
and I know how bad the world can be,
but I need to be able to do what my mum did.
She let me go out, move countries, live my life
and she was probably petrified.
So I think I need to prepare myself for that
and make sure that I don't over coddle him.
[gentle music continues]
- I always take the 26th of June off work because I know
I'm never gonna be in a brilliant space to work it.
[door creaks] [fire crackles]
I always book that as a day's holiday.
You think back to what happened on that day and mainly
for the people who didn't come home that day
and the families who didn't survive.
I'm just really glad that I was able to help someone
that day in a real tough experience.
If me being there helped her, I'm just really grateful
that I could be there to do that.
- I wanted to reclaim some of my identity,
but I didn't also wanna be the same person
that I was in the attack.
So I started to get tattoos, I started to get piercings,
and I started to be the person I wanted to be,
to use the experience to be me.
When I got my offer for university,
my mum and I were bawling our eyes out of joy
that I'd got into university.
And it was that moment, I thought that,
"Okay, I'm gonna make the most of this
because I shouldn't have been here, but I am."
[gentle piano music continues]
- You don't know by looking at somebody,
what they went through yesterday, last night, last year,
two years ago, ten years ago.
Anyone that goes through anything like this,
it takes time.
[uplifting orchestral music]
[uplifting orchestral music continues]
[somber acoustic guitar music]