‘I felt my fiancé’s blood washing over me’: Woman who survived the Tunisia massacre relives the horror a year on
Saera's fiancé acted like a human shield to protect her from the gunman
SAERA Wilson, 27, lives in Trehafod, Mid Glamorgan with her fiancé Mat James, 31, an engineer, and their children Tegan, seven and Caden, two. She says:
"Waking with a jolt, I was drenched in sweat. I’d had my usual nightmare of being suffocated.
Then Mat woke shaking, barely able to breathe.
Nights like these aren’t unusual for us, ever since we were caught up in last June’s Tunisian terrorist attack.
Mat and I had decided to treat ourselves to a child-free last-minute break and headed to the resort of Port El Kantaoui.
We spent our days relaxing on the beach outside our hotel, soaking up the sun.
Five days in, on June 26, I spotted a man in dark clothes walking down the beach.
Suddenly, huge firecracker bangs filled the air.
Frozen with terror, I realised he was gunning people down.
Holidaymakers were running and screaming as bodies fell right in front of us.
Mat pushed me on to the sand and lay on top of me like a human shield.
Then I felt warm liquid wash over me.
It was Mat’s blood – he’d been shot.
I could hear him murmuring that he was going to die and he told me to get help.
At first I refused to leave him, but he insisted that our kids needed one of us alive.
As soon as the shooter started to walk away, I ran and shouted for help.
Brave hotel staff headed to the beach to find Mat, so I dashed back inside to call my family.
But then the gunman stormed the building.
Terrified, I ran into a cupboard with three other guests and we stayed there until it was quiet.
I felt sick not knowing if Mat was dead or alive.
An hour after the attack began, 23-year-old Seifeddine Rezgui was killed by security forces.
The Tunisian student had murdered 38 people and is believed to have been radicalised by Islamic extremists.
Dead bodies were brought to reception in blankets to be identified.
Lifting the covers was awful, but it was a relief each time I saw it wasn’t Mat.
After two hours, I found out he was in hospital injured and I fell to the floor sobbing.
It was only then I realised I was still wearing my blood-soaked bikini and had shrapnel wounds to my leg.
At the hospital, I was told Mat had been in surgery to have a bullet removed from his chest.
Another had gone straight through his arm and a third through the top of his leg, severing nerves and exploding in his stomach.
The next day, we flew home by air ambulance and Mat was admitted to hospital in Cardiff for three weeks.
Permanent damage means he has no feeling in his left arm and the skin around the wounds is numb.
Once Mat was home, we hibernated, scared to go out anywhere crowded.
On our first supermarket trip, we both had a panic attack.
I worked from home for the gas engineering company Mat and I own, but in January he returned to work as we needed the money.
Tegan wanted to help around the house as much as she could and kept telling us that she loved us.
She made us promise we’d never go away without her again.
We’ve had counselling and take antidepressants, but it’s also made us closer.
We’re getting married in January, and while we’re not sure if we’ll go on honeymoon, as long as we’re together, we can face anything."