When Martin Bryant drove his yellow Volvo to Port Arthur\u2019s historic site, its boot stuffed with high-powered and casually acquired weapons, paramedic Peter James was living in Launceston. It was 28 April 1996.<\/p>\n
Peter was on holiday at the time, but when he heard sketchy reports of a shooting on the radio, he called the critical incident stress debriefing team to ask if he was needed. He was \u2013 not as a paramedic, but as a debriefer. With two colleagues, Peter drove to Hobart, just over two hours away, where he was briefed at ambulance headquarters. Even there, he said, he doesn\u2019t remember the scale of the crimes being evident yet. He wasn\u2019t \u201csteeling himself\u201d as he drove to the police command post that had been established at a Tasmanian devil sanctuary in Taranna, about 45 minutes from Hobart and close to Port Arthur.<\/p>\n
Peter arrived at the command post sometime after 5pm, and police began explaining the scale of the slaughter. The number of deaths wasn\u2019t confirmed yet, they said, but it was unthinkably high, and the police and SES volunteers were now searching for survivors who may have crawled into bushland to hide. They also sketched for Peter the back routes to the historic site, because driving the most direct way would take him past the Seascape guesthouse, where Bryant was holed up and shooting at police.<\/p>\n
When Peter arrived at Port Arthur, \u201cthe living had all been removed\u201d and taken to hospitals. Rather than treat the physically wounded, Peter was there to support the volunteer ambulance service who were first on the scene \u2013 \u201cpeople needed to ventilate, and it was my job to listen\u201d \u2013 but he would quickly be asked to do much more. Peter would work at the site for almost 24 hours straight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew most of the senior police there,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause they\u2019d been members of the critical incident debriefing team. After I\u2019d done my debriefings, the police said, \u2018You\u2019re not going anywhere. We\u2019ve got crime scene walk-throughs to do, and you\u2019re gonna help us.\u2019 And so I did. As graphic and disturbing as the place was, it was still a very large and complex crime scene, and there are logistics that go with that. Bodies had to be identified, and then forensic teams would go through again to examine the scene and photograph the bodies in position. I helped with that. I remember Tasmanian devils were starting to come out and sniff around the bodies, and the bodies had to be protected. Afterwards, they had to be loaded carefully and compassionately. These were all things that needed to be done. Forensics had so much to do.<\/p>\n
The remains of the Seascape bed and breakfast, which Bryant set alight, ending the siege. Photograph: William West\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI would offer advice \u2013 try to reduce police fatigue by asking that they rotate the officers who were protecting bodies. A whole busload of police came after that to help. The cops were good, very responsive to my suggestions. I was also there to support people, as some were falling apart. For some who had seen the children, they had reminded them of their own. There were definitely a few who weren\u2019t doing so well, and I would become one of them the next day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s black humour sometimes at jobs. But we operate behind a facade, and the magnitude of this, well, the facade fell away. And also when people become fatigued, like they did that day, coping mechanisms fall away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The forensic processing of the scene, as well as the psychological triaging, went on through the night, all while Bryant was still holed up at the Seascape. He was largely surrounded, but as night fell, there was no guarantee he couldn\u2019t slip away in the darkness. Those working at Port Arthur were on edge, and soon rumours were circulating that Bryant had indeed left the bed and breakfast and was returning to the site.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a well-controlled scene,\u201d Peter said. \u201cBut we were all anxious. I remember going to the toilet, and hearing the crunching of footsteps outside, and thinking, \u2018I don\u2019t want to die falling face first into a urinal.\u2019 I think it was the police commander.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a dark, cold night. And it sucked the life out of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s a hell, Peter said, it would look like the Broad Arrow Cafe that day. It was in there, and the adjacent gift shop, that Bryant, in just 90 seconds, had fired 29 rounds of his AR-15, killing 20 of his 35 victims and injuring another 12.<\/p>\n
When Peter approached the cafe to assist in the scene\u2019s processing, there was a police officer on guard at the front, signing in those who entered. He had a warning: \u201cJust know that the man who goes in there will not be the same man who comes out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNever has a truer word been spoken,\u201d said Peter.<\/p>\n
When Peter stepped inside, he felt a familiar sensation \u2013 or a familiar absence of sensation. Everything felt magically still, silent. He couldn\u2019t feel his breath, or the turbulence of the ceiling fans that were still spinning. There were forensic officers, but he couldn\u2019t hear them speak \u2013 or at least, in his traumatically embalmed memory of the scene, there were no voices.<\/p>\n
He was operating on another plane \u2013 some senses were hyperfocused and others numbed \u2013 and he remembers that room now as if it were a literal vacuum, sucked of air.<\/p>\n
A police officer on the steps of the Broad Arrow Cafe, where Martin Bryant shot and killed 20 of the 35 people he murdered. Photograph: David Gray\/Reuters<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve thought a lot about the police guard\u2019s words to Peter, which were forgivably raw and honestly forbidding, but perhaps helped prime Peter for a grotesquely transformative experience. I am reminded of Mike Ryan\u2019s experience of the scene the following day. As Tasmania police\u2019s chief psychologist, Ryan had spent the night attempting to make contact with Bryant in the Seascape, where it was believed he was holding its two owners hostage. The next morning, the commanding police officer asked Ryan to join the state\u2019s coroner at Port Arthur to help counsel \u201ca few people who weren\u2019t doing so well\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found myself in Broad Arrow,\u201d Ryan told me. \u201cAnd that didn\u2019t affect me at all. I\u2019d never seen a dead body in my life, but I found it almost like a film set. I objectified it. [My response] was very interesting. I saw one body sitting up, looking like she was puzzling over something.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was waiting to be affected. The images stay with me. They\u2019re graphic. I\u2019m not saying I was unaffected. One thing that really stays with me, and this is bizarre, but five of us were crammed into this little car, and it was the most perfect morning in Port Arthur, just the most beautiful, bizarre setting for this horrific institution. There were these mushrooms, red with white flakes on top \u2013 a whole row of them against this green swathe of grass. The sun was coming over. We just looked at it and said, \u2018It\u2019s so beautiful.\u2019 But there\u2019s two kids up there dead, and others lying around. Dead. The coroner said something like: \u2018You know, I\u2019ll never come back here again.\u2019 I\u2019ve never been back, either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Firefighters at the Seascape bed and breakfast. Bryant killed its owners before he began his rampage at the Port Arthur heritage site. Photograph: Rick Rycroft\/AP<\/p>\n
Ryan explained to me how a hardened officer, who has previously detached themselves from the traumas they were called to, might suddenly \u2013 and profoundly \u2013 be affected when the event was personalised. He told me of an experienced police officer \u2013 \u201cyou could cut your hair on his chin\u201d \u2013 who had come to see him after attending a fatal road crash.<\/p>\n
The victim was a young girl \u2013 the same age as the police officer\u2019s daughter and wearing the same-coloured dress as she had been that morning when he said goodbye. \u201cHe told me it was just like getting shot,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cHe said, \u2018I dealt with it, did really well\u2019, but he [later] collapsed, and then it brought everything else back [from his career]. It still gives me goose bumps.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same was true of Peter at Port Arthur, as it was for many others. As he was debriefing officers, conducting crime scene walk-throughs, arranging rosters and helping with the carriage of bodies, he was thinking of his own children, who were the same ages \u2013 six and three \u2013 as Alannah and Madeline Mikac, who were killed with their mother, Nanette. \u201cIt personalises it big time,\u201d Peter said. \u201cYour brain sort of twists it, and I remember saying later to my wife, \u2018How could someone shoot Sam and Oliver?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Photograph: Black Inc<\/p>\n
Around 3pm the next day, almost 24 hours after he had arrived, Peter called time. Some police officers wanted him to stay on, and Peter wasn\u2019t a man to say no, but his exhaustion and horror had peaked overwhelmingly. He wanted to get home. \u201cI just couldn\u2019t go on,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s only so much you can tolerate.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, Peter was driven home. It was a three-and-a-half-hour drive. He cried when he arrived. Hugged his wife and boys. But he didn\u2019t say much. And his house, if it wasn\u2019t before, became a castle. \u201cMy front door was like a drawbridge,\u201d Peter said. \u201cI shut that door, and [the world] stayed outside.\u201d<\/p>\n