Westfield Bondi Junction: They were hailed as heroes after snatching Ash Good’s stabbed baby to safety. But one week later, brothers Joe and Rick are struggling to deal with the horrific carnage they witnessed

EXCLUSIVE

The heroic brothers who saved the nine-month-old baby girl stabbed in the Westfield Bondi Junction massacre are struggling to cope in the aftermath of the horror.

Brothers Joe and Rick Tomarchio were at the shopping centre in Sydney’s eastern suburbs last Saturday when crazed Joel Cauchi, 40, killed six and injured a dozen more.

Fatally-wounded new mum Dr Ashlee Good, 38, threw her daughter Harriet into Joe’s hands in a bid to save the tot’s life after Cauchi stabbed them both in his frenzied attack.

The brothers rushed the mother and daughter to a nearby shop where they tried to stem their blood loss as the mass killing continued throughout the mall.

Minutes later, they were hailed heroes after their bravery was caught on camera as they left the shopping centre in shock at the horrific events – but they have since retreated from public view and shunned the spotlight. 

Now a friend has told Daily Mail Australia how the pair have been heavily impacted by the tragedy as they deal with their own grief grief over the carnage they saw.

‘He [Rick] is very shaken up,’ said a friend who did not wish to be named. ‘They both aren’t doing well.’

On Friday, their parents, Salvatore ‘Sal’ Tomarchio and his wife Mary, broke their silence outside the family home in Glenfield, south-west Sydney.

They said the traumatised brothers are still coming to terms with the shocking scenes inside the blood-soaked shopping centre.

‘They did a great thing to help to help people,’ Sal said. ‘They’re just a bit upset, you know.’

Mary added: ‘They will speak when they are ready.’

On Friday, Joe bunkered down behind closed doors and drawn blinds at his cliffside mansion in Sydney’s ritzy eastern suburbs.

According to a friend, he is still closely connected to his Campbelltown roots despite now living near stars like David and Candice Warner and Guy Sebastian. 

He was hailed a hero on Saturday after carrying the critically-injured infant into a Tommy Hilfiger store and using the shop’s clothes to compress their wounds.

Their harrowing account of how a terribly injured Dr Good passed the baby to Rick became one of the first stories to emerge about the incident.

The brothers spoke to a TV news reporter at the scene moments after being evacuated from the mall.

As shoppers were evacuated out of the Westfield, a witness interrupted a Nine News reporter performing a live cross on the streets and pointed to one of the brothers, saying: ‘He’s a hero – he saved the baby’.

Clearly shaken, Rick Tomarchio recalled how he used clothes from a store to try and stem the baby’s bleeding.

‘The baby got stabbed and, yeah, the mum got stabbed,’ Rick said.

‘The mum came over with the baby and threw it at me.

‘I just helped by holding the baby … and trying to compress the baby.’

The brothers stayed with the mother and called emergency services.

‘(It was) very bad… a lot of the blood on the floor … hope the baby’s alright,’ Joe Tomarchio said.

Despite their best efforts, Dr Good, an osteopath, died later that evening after being rushed to hospital.

Her little girl underwent emergency surgery for critical injuries, but has since improved and is now out of ICU in a stable condition.

On Thursday Daily Mail Australia revealed this is the second time Joe had come to the rescue for a member of the public.

He was publicly praised in 2010 when he stopped to help an elderly woman who had fallen over and smashed her head on the road in the city’s CBD.

The banker held the elderly woman’s head up and rallied other bystanders to assist him while they waited for an ambulance to arrive.

‘It was automatic. I knew somebody had to take control of the situation,’ Mr Tomarchio said at the time.

‘I grabbed her hand and told her everything was going to be OK.

‘I then asked where she worked, tried to keep her talking and keep her really comfortable, and then called for help with the local construction workers.’

Mr Tomarchio, who had been walking to work when he witnessed the woman fall, said he was surprised no one else stopped to help as she lay on the road in peak hour traffic.

The woman’s daughter hailed him a hero for saving the woman’s life, and said she she initially thought her mother was dead.

‘Joe was the star. The way he stayed so calm and just held her hand, I can’t thank him enough,’ she added.