Amandeep Singh-Bola, 34, born in New Zealand to Indian and Kiwi parents, was enjoying a kebab and watching the sunset over Bondi Beach when he heard gunshots.
At first Singh-Bola thought the noise was fireworks. Then he saw people panicking and running, leading him to run down the hill towards the shooters.
“I wanted to help get one of [the alleged shooters] down, or just help anybody that needed help, because a lot of people were scared,” he said to SBS World News.
The personal trainer said he saw a gunman, believed to be Sajid Akram, on a footbridge. He noticed he had dropped down and decided it was his opportunity to hold him down.
“I wanted to be as smart as I could,” he said to SBS, thinking of his fiancee and family during the attack.
New Zealand born Amandeep Singh-Bola helped restrain one of the Bondi shooters.
“It was almost like tunnel vision - just trying to hide behind things and not be seen, just trying to find out where he was. Once I saw where he was, nothing else really mattered.”
He ran on to the bridge and grabbed the gunman’s arms, helping hold him down with the help of a police officer.
Singh-Bola said he could feel the man he was on top of dying after he had already been shot by police.
“When I got up, I wasn’t sick from the blood or anything,” he told SBS.
“I had just smashed back a kebab with spicy sauce on it, so I was actually sick from the run down.”
He said he hasn’t slept well since the attack, but finds comfort in knowing he helped.
Daughter says slain father ‘went down fighting’
The daughter of a Bondi Beach victim has broken her silence about her father, saying he died a hero.
Shooting victim Ahmed Al Ahmed became a household name after footage of him tackling and disarming one of the gunmen went viral.
Another person could be seen flinging objects at the shooter moments before he was shot and killed. He has been identified as businessman Reuven Morrison.
“Faced with pure evil, he did not retreat, hide or save himself,” one person who shared the footage said.
“He confronted it head-on, buying precious moments for others at the cost of his own life.
