The Shooting at Australia's Bondi Beach Is Devastating but There Is a Hero Worth Celebrating

When tragedy strikes, it's human nature to consider what you think you would do if you were in that situation. For example, a lot of people believe they could have prevented some of the September 11 attacks if they were on the plane. Actor Mark Wahlberg was famously supposed to be on one of the flights and later said that had he been there, "it wouldn't have went down like it did."

According to Page Six, he quickly apologized for his tone deaf statement.

The truth of the matter is, no one knows what they would do in a difficult situation until they're in it. Depending on what's happening, you might be at the mercy of your body's natural response to a stressor. Most of us have certainly imagined a worst-case scenario in which we paint ourselves as heroes.

Only a handful of people would actually follow through. That's what happened in Australia during a shooting at Bondi Beach. Keep reading for the story.

What should have been a day of celebration turned tragic when two men opened fire on an annual Hanukkah celebration held beachside at Bondi Beach, in the suburbs of Sydney. According to The New York Times, two men arrived in a gray hatchback at approximately 6:30 p.m. They stepped out of the vehicle with two large guns, then positioned themselves on a bridge overlooking the gathering. That's when they began shooting, eventually killing 16 people.

The shooters were identified as a father-son pair, 50 and 24 years old. When one of the shooters walked off the bridge to approach the partygoers, that's when footage shows a man approaching him from a vehicle in a nearby parking lot. The hero tackled the shooter, then wrestled his gun away and turned it on him. At this point, police arrived, fatally shooting one of the attackers. The other was injured.

Per The Guardian, the hero who undoubtedly saved countless lives at Bondi Beach has been identified as 43-year-old Ahmed al-Ahmed. He is in critical, but stable condition at a local hospital. Ahmed's cousin, Mustafa al-Asaad, told Al Araby television network that the 43-year-old "couldn't bear to see people dying."

He asked for strength from God before declaring his intention to stop the shooter from killing more people.

"When he did what he did, he wasn't thinking about the background of the people he's saving, the people dying in the street," said Ahmed's father to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "He doesn't discriminate between one nationality and another. Especially here in Australia, there's no difference between one citizen and another."

Ahmed is an Australian citizen originally from Syria, where he worked as a police officer.

Lubaba Alhmidi AlKahil, the media director for the Australians for Syria Association, said this is typical behavior for a Syrian. "We’ve refused injustice and persecution [in Syria], and it’s not strange that one of us had the feeling: 'No, I will not watch, I will die to help.'"