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A survivor of the deadly knife attack at Bondi Junction Westfield has told how seeing her doctor’s smiling face helped her cope.
Leah Barko was seriously injured in the April 13 riot that killed six people and was only released from hospital a week ago.
Since that day, the 35-year-old man has been living on an emotional rollercoaster. Along with the horror of the attack, she remembers the euphoria of waking up and realizing she was alive.
“I just remember such, such an open smile and a happy face,” she said of her doctor.
“He was so happy, I’ve never seen anyone really so happy.”
On the morning of April 13, Barko took her first volleyball lesson and then headed to the shops to buy a volleyball so she could practice.
That’s when she crosses paths with a killer.
“He just looked at me and decided in that moment, and then I looked at my hand and it was bleeding,” she said.
Barko was stabbed in the ribs and another shopper immediately came to her aid, helping her into a store and closing the door behind them.
“When you’re on the floor, you’re bleeding, you can see everybody’s expression and some of them were crying, they were scared … for their lives, too,” she said.
The rescuer, a man wearing a green shirt, helped stop the bleeding and likely saved the 35-year-old’s life.
She was taken to intensive care, where her life hung in the balance for 10 days, but she eventually got out, encouraged by the smiling doctor.
“I thought well, if I die right now, I’ll just destroy his replacement. So I can’t die right now because he’s so happy,” Barko said.
As she recovered, and continues to do so, one question remained at the forefront of her mind.
“My question is how did this happen, why was a schizophrenic out with a knife doing a normal Saturday afternoon and he just turned it into hell?”
The 35-year-old arrived in Sydney 18 months ago to study after growing up in Ukraine and moving to Argentina.
But after the attack, her studies and her job as a cleaner were put on hold.
Loved ones have started a GoFundMe crowdfunding page to help with Barco’s recovery.
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