00:02Abdullah Ashraf, he's a 27 year old international student originally from Pakistan and he's
00:07studying law and philosophy here in Sydney.
00:09He was driving a rideshare car at Bondi on the 14th of December when the terror attack
00:15happened and he said that there was a lot of confusion at the time but given his background
00:19growing up in Pakistan he knew what he could hear were gunshots and he described it as
00:25an instinct kicked in that while many people understandably were running for their own
00:30safety he said something took over that he just felt compelled to get to the situation
00:35and try to help in the ways that he can and the dash cam in his car captures him doing
00:40so
00:40and as he got to the situation you can see him getting out to help a police officer who he
00:47saw
00:47had been shot and he helped that officer try to stem his bleeding and then once he was tended to
00:54he then noticed a young mother who was wounded and injured and her children beside her he said
01:00he got her children to safety and then tended to her to try and help her here's what he had
01:04to say
01:05about that I made sure that they're behind the car so even if they're bullets flying around at least
01:14they're safe and I attended to the mother I made sure she was conscious and started putting pressure
01:20on her wounds to control the bleeding and kept talking to her asked her what her name was tried
01:26to talk to her tell her she's going to be okay and yeah just putting pressure on the wound constantly
01:32to make sure she doesn't bleed out then Abdullah went to help a number of other people who were injured
01:39and that included 27 year old Dan Elkayem who was a French national who was injured in the attack
01:45he said that when he got to him though his pulse was very weak and he stayed with him and
01:52just held
01:53his hand as he passed away here's what he had to say it was very weak pulse and he didn't
02:00react
02:02tried to talk to him or anything I did look in his eyes but I couldn't locate his his wound
02:10or where it
02:10was and he just he just passed away and how did what happened then impact his visa situation Sean
02:19well Roz understandably the trauma from that incident really weighed on Abdullah in the months
02:24after he was a student enrolled in a law degree and attempted to continue his studies and his assessments
02:31but after multiple attempts to return to uni he found it really difficult and on the advice of his
02:37doctor and with the permission of his university it was agreed that he would have compassionate grounds
02:43to take two terms of leave to cope with the trauma and the stress but in that time his enrollment
02:49certificate lapsed with the university and then that meant that his student visa ended up in in an
02:55administrative area he says being cancelled so he's since applied for a new student visa to finish the
03:03remainder of his studies but he says that the uncertainty of that situation has really weighed
03:07on him so here's what he had to say on that situation I don't know how the department might
03:14look at it or how the case officer might look at it and that uncertainty is always there because if
03:19my
03:19visa gets rejected that puts me in a very difficult situation that leaves me with the last six seven
03:25years of my life hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition fee and still without a degree going back
03:32home without anything and have you had a response from the department of home affairs sean so i did
03:39approach the department of home affairs we know that there have been some high profile situations
03:42where people who have demonstrated acts of bravery have been granted a permanent residency in australia i
03:50asked them about that they said that abdullah's visa situation will be assessed on a case-by-case basis and
03:57any question for the minister to exercise his discretion will be with the minister for home affairs tony burke
