His migration lawyer Sam Issa told the Sydney Morning Herald the pain had \u201cstarted to take a toll on him\u201d while revealing he feared Al Ahmed may lose his arm.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not well at all. He\u2019s riddled with bullets. Our hero is struggling at the moment,\u201d Issa told the publication.<\/p>\n
Issa said Al Ahmed has about five bullet wounds across his left arm \u2013 one plunging into the back of his left shoulder blade.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a lot worse than expected. When you think of a bullet in the arm, you don\u2019t think of serious injuries, but he has lost a lot of blood,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Two gunmen killed 15 people and injured at least 40 at Bondi Beach on Sunday evening. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cAhmed\u2019s a humble man, he\u2019s not interested in coverage, he just did what he was compelled to do as a human being on that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gets that gratitude from being in Australia. This is his way of conveying his gratitude for staying in Australia, for being granted citizenship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Al Ahmed was earlier named as a fruit seller from the Sutherland Shire \u2013 despite confirmation he has actually owned and operated his own tobacconist and specialist convenience store since 2021.<\/p>\n
Sutherland Best Fresh settled the record through its Facebook page yesterday. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo sad to see this tragedy happen this afternoon in Bondi,\u201d the store wrote on Facebook.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been a miscommunication \u2026 on where this great Australian hero\u2019s fruit shop location is.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not know who Ahmed is, nor the location of his fruit shop.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe congratulate this hero and wish him a speedy recovery. Praying for those who have been affected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahmed Al Ahmed tackles the gunman during Sunday’s massacre at Bondi Beach. <\/p>\n
Bondi hero fundraiser hits $1.84m<\/p>\n
Thousands of wellwishers have saluted Mr Al Ahmed\u2019s bravery by donating AU$1.6m ($1.84m) to a fundraiser created to support him and his family.<\/p>\n
More than 25,000 people had contributed to the fundraiser at about midday today (NZT), including an enormous donation from American-Jewish investment banker Bill Ackman.<\/p>\n
Ackman, whose net worth is around AU$9.5b ($10.9b), donated AU$99,999 ($114,800) after urging a verified platform to set up a fundraiser to support the hero and his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter witnessing the extraordinary actions of the hero who helped disarm one of the attackers during the Bondi tragedy, an act that prevented the loss of countless more lives, we felt compelled to act,\u201d the GoFundMe description reads.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a moment of chaos and danger, he stepped forward without hesitation. His actions were selfless, instinctive and undeniably heroic, taken without regard for his own safety. Early reports indicate he was shot twice in the process while protecting others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis GoFundMe has been created to show our gratitude and support for someone who demonstrated incredible courage when it mattered most.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minns\u2019 hospital visit<\/p>\n
NSW Premier Chris Minns met Ahmed during his recovery, posting a touching message to Instagram about his heroism.<\/p>\n
\u201cAhmed is a real-life hero. Last night, his incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk,\u201d Minns wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an honour to spend time with him just now and to pass on the thanks of people across NSW.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no doubt that more lives would have been lost if not for Ahmed\u2019s selfless courage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you, Ahmed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018My son is a hero\u2019<\/p>\n
Speaking to the ABC earlier in the day, Ahmed\u2019s father Mohamed Fateh Al Ahmed spoke of their son\u2019s move to Australia in 2006 and why he was in Bondi on the day of the massacre.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened is: his friend told him, \u2018Let\u2019s go have coffee at Bondi\u2019,\u201d Al Ahmed\u2019s father told the broadcaster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey got there, and were shocked to see armed men firing their weapons.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir lives were in danger. He noticed one of the armed men at a distance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Al Ahmed snr lauded his son as a \u201chero\u201d who had the impulse to protect people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he saw people laying on the ground and the blood everywhere, immediately his conscience and his soul compelled him to pounce on one of the terrorists and rid him of his weapon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel pride and honour, because my son is a hero of Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malakeh Hasan Al Ahmed \u2013 Al Ahmed\u2019s mother \u2013 said her son saved lives on that fateful day.<\/p>\n
She told the ABC her son noticed one of the shooters had run out of ammunition when he pounced on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he was hit,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe pray that God saves him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His migration lawyer Sam Issa told the Sydney Morning Herald the pain had \u201cstarted to take a toll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[117178,117177,13628,15153,806,48378,35594,97308,117179,33489,6097,6119,2109,1888,71,40371,42,12811,15318,2241,11556,43,51252,3109,54894,117182,1886,117181,37735,117180,2044,6382,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-185751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-184m","tag-ahmed","tag-al","tag-arm","tag-as","tag-bed","tag-bondi","tag-bystander","tag-disarmed","tag-donations","tag-down","tag-faces","tag-family","tag-first","tag-from","tag-fundraiser","tag-headlines","tag-hero","tag-heroic","tag-hospital","tag-losing","tag-news","tag-pass","tag-public","tag-spoken","tag-staggering","tag-support","tag-surpasses","tag-terror","tag-terrorists","tag-time","tag-took","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}