A 19-year-old who fled the LynnMall stabbings and helped a wounded woman says she didn't realise the serious impact the attack had on her until she visited another supermarket on the weekend.
Monica Seve and her boyfriend. Photo: Supplied
Monica Seve and her boyfriend were shopping for snacks in Countdown on Friday afternoon when seven people were stabbed.
She said they'd dawdled in the car for 10 minutes before going in - something she now considers very lucky - and made it to the hot chicken stand before hearing screaming a few aisles away.
"I started to walk over towards it because I thought maybe something cool was going on. Everyone else in the shop was walking towards it and then they kind of just turned around and said 'run, run, run, he's got a knife'," she said.
"We just ran to our car ... parked right in front of the entrance and that's when we saw a lady come out and she had been stabbed in her hip.
In the chaos, Seve said no one else appeared to notice the injured woman.
The woman was on the phone to a 111 operator, Seve recalled, but appeared to be in shock.
"I just told her she needed to stop walking and she needed to sit down 'cause she was in shock. She did sit down and and she just said, 'Oh my god, I'm so scared. I'm so scared'.
"I said no, you're going to be OK and I just asked for permission to take off her jersey so I could start wrapping it around her wound."
The woman fled when she heard the sound of police gunshots, Seve said, leaving behind her phone and belongings.
"Everyone outside thought it was the attacker that had the gun, so that created more shock for everyone, especially the lady that I was helping."
Seve found the woman's ID card, which she read out to the 111 operator, then tracked down the woman's family on Facebook to let them know what had happened.
Seve said she was feeling 'okay' a few days on from the event, but it had a bigger impact on her than she expected.
"I think little signs of trauma are coming through - like when I've been at the supermarket. I went the other day and I felt like I couldn't trust anyone that was walking close to me. I was constantly moving out of their way."
Seve said it was disconcerting to find out she was sharing the supermarket with a known extremist.
"That was that was really scary to find out, because that just shows how much of a dangerous person he actually was. To know that we were literally in the same store and room as him - it was scary."
