Exchanges of sorrow: Bourke St chaplain reflects on traumatic events

Faces etched with confusion and disbelief, wandering eyes and wandering minds. 

Just a few hours after the tragic events at Bourke Street on January 20, where Dimitrious "James" Gargasoulas, 26, allegedly mowed down two dozen pedestrians on and killed six others, the city fell quiet. 

The haunting silence of a often-bustling pedestrian precinct was the first thing that struck emergency chaplain Jenny McGuirk. 

“It was a silent city – everything was shut down. A lot of people didn’t understand what was happening,” said Ms McGuirk, who was deployed by the Victorian Council of Churches Emergency Ministry. 

“People were displaced, they didn’t know where to go.”

Having mentally prepared to deal with uncontrollable grief, Ms McGuirk found herself directing pedestrian traffic for most of the evening of Friday, January 20. 

“On Friday night we were really guides in the most practical sense. We were telling people where to go,” she said. 

As the days progressed, the role of Ms McGuirk, and another 161 volunteers activated by the VCC emergency ministry, changed markedly. 

“We did the equivalent of 311 days’ work in 10 days – it was very intensive,” she said. 

The ministries’ emergency chaplains spoke to a total of 3221 people over 10 days after the tragedy, providing support to those directly impacted by the incident, and those who simply wanted someone to talk to.

“We loitered with intent, asking people, ‘are you OK’?” she said.

“Where people wanted to we would engage in conversation and provide psychological first aid, paying attention to the mind, spirit and soul.”

Making sense of a senseless act was the biggest challenge for Ms McGuirk. 

“We try and help people frame or reframe what’s happening. Trying to make sense of the indefensible,” she said. 

Numerous “intense and difficult” conversations left the volunteers drained, but the scale of the tragedy and the impact of their work, allied with the thorough debriefs after each five-hour shifts, energised the chaplains. 

“People were very vulnerable, the (Bourke Street) mall was seen as somewhere safe and people were trying to recapture that feeling of safety,” she said. 

“When people are stressed, the most important thing we do is listen. 

“A lot of people who had been directly impacted by what happened came back (for follow up conversations).

“It was really important that people felt heard – a lot of the conversations were quite long.”

According to Fairfax Media more than 794 people were referred to the Victims of Crime Victoria support agency, including witnesses and relatives of those killed, in the three-week period after the attack. 

Of that number, a massive 774 people have been linked in to a victim assistance program, while others have opted to see a counsellor of their own.

Experts predict one in five witnesses will develop a mental health condition such as post traumatic stress disorder, depression or anxiety.

The Department of Justice and Regulation said witnesses and families were being advised on how to communicate with police, organise counselling and how to prepare a victim impact statement and navigate the criminal justice system including TAC and WorkSafe Victoria.

Ms McGuirk will be detailing her experiences in the aftermath of the Bourke Street attack in her role as keynote speaker at the Bendigo Festival of Cultures Interfaith Forum and Dinner.

A part of her speech will focus on the role of the public memorial as an expressor of collective grief. 

Up to eight temporary memorial sites ladened with flowers were dotted along Bourke Street after the incident. 

“A lot of them (memorials) were 2-3 people deep, it was a community displaying a lot of resilience and support,” she said.

“It was moving and a privilege to be a part of.”

The waning influence of the institutional church left a vacuum for collective expressions of grief, according to Ms McGuirk, which she believed could be filled by public memorials. 

“People were connected to churches in the past and when things happened, churches, for the most part, provided the support,” she said.

“Churches don’t play that part anymore, for a number of people. The institutional church no longer carries that relevance.

“A memorial is a place where people come together to make sense of things. It gives a reality to death.

“People have begun to share their grief communally – some people find it difficult, some people draw great strength from that.”

Ms McGuirk, a former school teacher who worked as a chaplain at the Victorian Liver Transplantation Unit at the Austin Hospital, Heidelberg, said the VCC emergency volunteers did 40 per cent of last years’ work in just 10 days after the carnage at Bourke Street.

“The scale was enormous,” she said. 

“It was the most significant and intense thing I have ever done. 

“I was fine but I was tired. The debriefing and support networks were terrific.”

Ms McGuirk will be speaking at the All Seasons Conservatory, McIvor Road, Bendigo, on March 23, from 6pm.

Website: www.bendigofestivalofcultures.org.au