It’s been 20 years since the Bali Bombings. These are the stories that cannot be forgotten.

Warning: This post deals with depictions of violence and could be triggering for some readers. 

The word “terror attack” is quickly thrown around in the media, as a team from the Australian Federal Police are deployed on the ground to investigate. 

Survivors are flown from the island to Australia, where medical teams around the country are on standby to help dozens left injured in the blasts. 

The world is watching, waiting and hoping. 

The names and faces we will never forget.

Amidst the chaos, the world would learn the names of those caught up in the attack, which is captured in the Stan Original Series, Bali 2002, and unite in a search for answers. 

Peter Hughes.

In Australia, the swollen face of Peter Hughes is one of the first images we see on our television screens hours after the blast. 

Sitting in a bed in a busy Denpasar hospital, the 42-year-old Perth man appears bloodied, burnt and blistered after surviving the attack. 

“How are you doing?” a Channel Nine reporter asks him. 

“Good, really good, well looked after,” he replies. 

Peter has suffered burns to over 50 per cent of his body. 

“There’s a lot worse [sic] more people than me.” 

The father of one was out drinking with friends in Paddy’s Bar when the first bomb exploded. 

After hearing a “click” and a “bang”, Peter was knocked to the ground by a girl who "cannoned" into him. 

Helping the girl, the pair stumbled to their feet amid the smoke and screams before making their way outside onto the street. 

Moments later, Peter was thrown back into the burning building when the second bomb went off. 

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” he tells the reporter as he shakes his head searching for words. “[It was] undescribable [sic].”

He would later tell Fairfax Media he remembers “gasping for air” immediately after the blast.

In the years following, Peter would become a motivational speaker, release a book, and create the Peter Hughes BURN Foundation (PHBF) to help burn survivors and their families in times of trauma. 

Looking back, he told Fairfax Media there were powerful memories from that night that will always stay with him. 

"To see people that were badly injured trying to help other people is inspirational and I think even when people thought they had no hope they were helping.”

Carren Smith.

Carren Smith had arrived in Bali the afternoon of October 12, unaware that hours later she too would be in a hospital fighting for her life. 

The then-32-year-old Sydney woman was brought to Bali by her friends Jodi Wallace and Charmaine Whitton in an attempt to cheer her up after her partner had taken his own life a year earlier. Carren would later share that she also intended to take her own life in Bali on the anniversary of his death. 

That Saturday night, the three women had been at the Sari Club for three hours when the bomb exploded. 

Moments later, Carren opened her eyes to find herself on the floor surrounded by fire and bodies. 

"It all happened so fast,” she later told A Current Affair. 

 After hearing a voice in her head telling her “you need to get out”, she began to squirm out from underneath the rubble.

“At that stage, it didn’t even register that they were dead people or parts, it didn’t even compute for me.” 

At hospital, Carren received 38 staples in her head and told she would need a life-saving operation. 

But she wanted to return to Australia first. 

"I had shared needles with six other people. No way was it safe to have an operation there,” she told the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader. 

After flying back to Australia, doctors removed bone fragments from Carren’s head and inserted a plate. 

Two days later, she was delivered heartbreaking news. Jodi and Charmaine weren't coming home.

"It was devastating. I was broken for a good six years.” 

After a long battle with depression, Carren went on to share her inspirational story as a motivational speaker and author. 

"I was convinced that helping people in this way was the right thing to do.”

"I feel incredibly positive and blessed to be here and to tell people my story."

Polly Brooks.

Polly Brooks had been married to Dan Miller for five weeks when the couple and a group of friends travelled to Bali for a holiday. 

The British couple had met on a previous trip to Bali and later became engaged on the island. 

On Saturday night, Polly and Dan had gone out drinking at the Sari Club with eight other people, including Polly’s best friend and bridesmaid, Annika Linden. 

Then came the explosion. 

A massive flash of yellow light swept through the club and the 29-year-old was knocked to the floor. 

“It was like you see in films,” she told the Daily Mail. 

“I hit the floor and loads of stuff was falling on top of me. I had this moment of sheer terror where I thought ‘this is it, I'm dying’.”

Hearing people scream around her, she managed to pull off a beam that was crushing her right leg by slipping out of her trousers and shoe. 

She was eventually taken to hospital and later flown to Australia, where she was treated for the burns covering 43 per cent of her body. 

There, in a Brisbane hospital, she was told Dan and Annika didn't make it. 

Of the party of 10 that went out that night, Polly was the only one who survived. The others became some of the 28 Britons who died in the attack. 

"I had gone from being ecstatically happy on my wedding day, amazing honeymoon... to rock bottom, world collapse,” she told the BBC. 

"I felt like it would have been so much easier if I'd been killed - you're just gone, job done… I had so much pressure on my shoulders, to get better, to deal with all the grief and the funerals. I had to face all the parents of all my friends who'd been killed."

One day in hospital, while grieving the loss of her loved ones, a nurse told her, "You have to focus on yourself, and getting better. Grief will come later, you have to dig deep and survive."

And so she did. 

She set up the charity Dan's Fund for Burns, in her husband's name, to help adult burn survivors in the UK. Her work later saw her awarded the Order of a Member of the British Empire in the Queen’s 2020 New Year Honours.  

Today Polly’s story and fight for survival is being retold in the Stan Original Series Bali 2002. 

For Bridgerton actor Claudia Jessie, who plays Polly in the four-part series, it was critical the 29-year-old’s story and the attack that claimed the lives of her loved ones, was retold as authentically as possible. 

20 years on from the bombing.

To this day, the Bali bombings represent the single largest loss of Australian life due to an act of terror.

A week after the attacks, Indonesian police arrested Abu Bakar Bashir, a leading member of the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic radical group, Jemaah Islamiyah, in connection with a different series of terrorist attacks. 

In 2005, he was found guilty of conspiracy for the 2002 Bali bombings. However, his conviction was later overturned on appeal.

Three other men - Imam Samudra, Amrozi, and Mukhlas - were executed for their role in the attack in 2008, and a number of others have also been imprisoned or killed for their involvement. 

As we approach the 20-year anniversary of the attack, it’s stories like Peter Hughes, Carren Smith and Polly Brooks’ that we should never forget - the stories of those who were injured, those who still bear physical and psychological scars of those who lost their lives.

There are also those who risked their lives helping others in the attack; the people who pulled others out of burning buildings, those who helped transport people to hospital, and medical staff who worked tirelessly in Indonesia, Australia and overseas to save them. 

It’s these everyday heroes that are being celebrated in Bali 2002. 

The series - which features a diverse cast of Australian and international actors, including Sean Keenan as AFL star Jason McCartney - presents a deeper dive into the tragedy and the people who banded together to bring order from chaos and hope from despair. 

People like burns specialist Dr Fiona Wood. 

Played by Rachel Griffiths in the series, Dr Wood headed the burns unit at Royal Perth Hospital, where her invention of 'spray-on skin' was used to help survivors.

Later named Australian of the Year in 2005, Dr Wood and her team treated 28 victims of the bombings, 25 of whom survived. 

The series also highlights the incredible efforts of Australian Federal Police Commander, Graham Ashton. 

Played by Richard Roxburgh (Rake, Moulin Rouge), Ashton led the Australian investigation into the bombings as part of the joint Australian and Indonesian taskforce, known as Operation Alliance. 

He was later awarded an Order of Australia for his work. 

By revisiting one of the tragic moments in recent history, Claudia Jessie hopes the Stan Original Series Bali 2002 demonstrates the triumph and compassion of the human spirit. 

“The thing I'd hope people would come away with the most is that, yes, the show does display the capacity of human beings in their power to do terrible things… But what the show also does is show the other side of that same coin, which is resilience, compassion, altruism, strength, how people will support others in a time of need to their best of their ability [and] how people can get through something as unthinkable as this,” she says.  

“I think the show displays the beautiful capacity of human beings.”

You can watch every episode of the Stan Original Series Bali 2002 now, only on Stan.

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