Warning: this article contains details of injuries sustained during a terrorist attack.

The 2025 Bondi Beach terrorist attack was different to other terrorism incidents. What stands out was the response.

Lifeguards, off-duty doctors and nurses, and members of the public worked alongside ambulance paramedics and community first-responders to triage and treat the injured. In all, 16 people died, including one of the gunmen.

I’m a paramedic, medical doctor, researcher and the clinical lead of Community Health Support – a volunteer medical first-responder charity set up by the Jewish community in Sydney. I had been training our teams for a disaster like this for four years, and helped co-ordinate the organisation’s emergency response at Bondi that day.

In a paper published in the Medical Journal of Australia, my colleagues and I describe how our organisation prepared for and responded to the Bondi attack, how we helped our community recover, and the lessons we learned.

At 6.42pm on December 14 2025 two gunmen began shooting at the crowd of about 600 Jewish community members celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Sydney.

Within minutes, 000 emergency lines were overwhelmed with callers.

At the same time, people sheltering from the bullets began applying first aid to their injured friends and family.

Local lifeguards and volunteer lifesavers rushed to the aid of the 42 injured survivors who ended up going to hospital, and the many more who were treated at the scene. Doctors, nurses and good samaritans, who just happened to be nearby, also responded. These so-called spontaneous or “zero responders” arrived before “first responders” such as........

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