ROAD TO MENTAL WELLNESS
BY ALEX TILBURY
The whole roof of the Bali hut had collapsed and the lads were stuck under it when the fire started . They eventually crawled out and ran for their lives before climbing over a brick fence . Dale said the adrenalin kicked in and he pulled himself up the wall . The 2002 Bali bombings in the tourist district of Kuta killed 88 Australians , 38 Indonesians , 23 Britons , and people of more than 20 other nationalities . A further 209 people were injured .
As he was climbing up the wall , the intense heat burned the skin on his back , back of his legs and arms .
Dale recovering from his burns
On 12 October it was the 20th anniversary of the Bali bombing . For survivor Dale Atkin , originally of Hallam in Victoria , it ’ s a sombre anniversary as he reflects on his long and difficult journey to mental wellness .
As fate would have it , Dale had arrived in Bali a day earlier than his AFL club footy mates at about 3pm on 12 October . Barely nine hours later he was in hospital with burns to 43 per cent of his body . He was given a 30 per cent chance of survival .
Dale ended up in an Indonesian hospital for 24 hours in excruciating pain without even so much as a Panadol to help him . The Australian Army then evacuated the survivors in a Hercules to Darwin , from there he went to Melbourne where he spent four days in intensive care and a further seven weeks in the burns unit having multiple operations .
“ The depth of my burns was that of half a cricket ball ,” he said .
The Elite level sales performer from Ray White Drouin credits his wife Katie and their three children as giving him the motivation to go on .
“ My mate Travis and I arrived a day earlier than the rest of the team . We had just found a seat at the bar of the Sari Club ,” Dale said .
“ I was looking out across the street at Paddy ’ s and I saw this huge explosion , I turned to my mate Travis and I said ‘ what the ...’ The next minute the bomb planted inside a parked van outside the Sari Club went off and it was just pandemonium .”
Dale said it all went dark . It was just after 11pm and a suicide bomber inside the nightclub Paddy ’ s Pub had detonated a bomb in his backpack , causing 202 deaths .
“ Everywhere people were just screaming . There was rubble absolutely everywhere . You could feel the fire starting to ignite . I thought I was going to die ,” he said .
A view of the bomb blast site in Denpasar , Bali , Source : Getty Images
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