Mark Blundell, Donna Corbel, Tahlia Blundell and Jake Blundell, pictured during an earlier trip to Melbourne, were in a restaurant 40m away from where the shooting occurred. Photo: Supplied
A Kiwi caught up in the mass shooting at Sydney's Bondi Beach says her family are still very much on edge the day after the tragedy.
Sixteen people died - including a shooter - when a father and son opened fire at a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach last night.
Donna Corbel is visiting her two children, and she told Checkpoint the family were dining together less than 40 metres away from where the shooting began.
"We were having dinner in the restaurant and we were chatting and laughing, and the next minute there were hundreds of people, maybe thousands, just swarming up off the beach.
"It was just unbelievable. We thought it might be a tsunami, because the restaurant was quite loud, and we just didn't know what was happening, and they all just started swarming into the restaurant and hiding under the tables where we were having our dinner."
She said nobody could speak to tell them what was happening, but then they heard the gunshots, and they ran out the back of the restaurant and out the window.
"We just went running for our lives, and all this gunfire that just keep going and going, and it was just shot after shot, and it felt like it was around our heads, it was so loud."
Corbel said her family did not discuss anything, they just ran.
"Just going in sheer terror, just running for our lives, really.
"You could tell it wasn't fireworks, you knew what it was."
They eventually took cover, but she said it felt like a lifetime until the shooting stopped.
She told Checkpoint that yesterday's events has left a devastating mark on them.
"You just immediately react... I watched my son freak at the noise of the police siren this morning as they went by.
"Any noise, you're just on edge. We went and sat a café and had a coffee and I'm looking around to see how we could get out of here, where we could run... if we needed to."
Corbel said she wanted her children to move home, even though it felt like nowhere is truly safe.
"It's pretty scary, the kids both live here, and I think it's time for them to come home. We want them to come home, not that anywhere in the world is safe really."
She said they had been unable to retrieve their phones and wallets from the still locked-down restaurant.
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