It was the most remarkable act of heroism to emerge from the Tunisian beach massacre, the British engineer who used himself as a human shield to save his fiancee. See more photo after the cut....
In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday from his hospital bed, Matthew James, whose courage made headlines around the world, reveals his astonishing story for the first time today – and tells how he was initially convinced he was going to die after being hit by three bullets as he flung himself around Saera Wilson to protect her.
On the mend: Matthew James back with his fiancée Saera Wilson and their children Tegan, six, and Caden, 15 months
As the shooting started, Saera was sitting on a sun lounger while Matthew rubbed lotion into her back.
A few yards away Islamic State-trained Seifeddine Rezgui cut down an elderly German couple, the first victims of an outrage that left 38 dead and 39 wounded, the worst terror attack on Britons since the 7/7 London bombings.
Then he aimed his AK-47 directly at 26-year-old Saera.
‘When the shots were fired at the German couple it simply didn’t register with Saera,’ said Matthew. ‘At least not for a few seconds. She said later she thought it was a joke, some kind of game. But I just kind of acted instinctively, and pulled her out of the way.’
Atrocity: A body lies on the beach, one of the 38 victims of Islamic State-trained gunman Seifeddine Rezgui
The 16-stone former rugby prop forward flung himself in front of her and ‘twisted her around and pulled her down to the ground’ just as Rezgui unleashed his second burst of fire. One bullet sliced open his lower stomach; another lodged in his chest, just above his heart; a third went clean through his upper left arm. Saera lay in the sand, terrified but unscathed.
What happened next – the story of Matthew’s Herculean battle for survival, having initially given himself up for dead – is possibly even more remarkable, and is revealed for the first time today.
Eventually persuading Saera to run to safety, Matthew crawled along the beach on his hands and knees, leaving a thick trail of blood.
For the next hour he received no medical attention, and was given only a towel to stem the blood from his stomach. At times during the chaos – once as he lay slumped in a stairwell – he was left alone, convinced he wouldn’t make it.
At other times he was helped by hotel staff as he staggered around seeking refuge. At one point he found himself in a corridor – unknowingly just yards away from Saera, the mother of his two young children, who was hiding in a broom cupboard.
She was later told that Matthew had died from a heart attack in an ambulance on the way to hospital.
It was only after he had undergone a life-saving operation, during which his heart stopped, that the couple discovered they had both survived.
The next day Matthew, a 30-year-old gas engineer, was hailed a hero who exemplified the holidaymakers’ resilience in the face of unimaginable terror. It is a tag that leaves the unassuming Welshman distinctly uncomfortable.
Now back in Britain, Matthew said: ‘I wouldn’t say I was a hero, it all just happened so fast. All I know is I’m the luckiest man alive.’ In the minutes after the shooting, as he lay in the sand fearing the ‘gunman would come back to finish me off’, he felt sure ‘it was curtains for me’.
He pleaded with Saera to run for her life. ‘I said, “I love you babe, tell the kids I love them, but go now because they need one of us to look after them and I’m going to die.”
‘I was lying in between our two sunbeds, unable to move, and Saera was underneath mine, hidden from view by a towel. I could clearly see the gunman.
'He was going from sunbed to sunbed, lifting each one up with his foot and firing at the people hiding. I could see his face. He wasn’t angry, but he looked purposeful, like a postman on his rounds, calmly going about his business.’
Heading home: Matthew and Saera smile as they are flown home in an air ambulance
Eventually, Rezgui disappeared over a sandbank towards the couple’s hotel, the Imperial Marhaba, where the slaughter continued.
At first Saera refused her fiance’s entreaties to flee, saying: ‘I can’t leave you, we can fix this, babe. You’re not going to die.’
But then he shouted, ‘Go now!’ and Saera ran towards two Tunisians from the neighbouring Bellevue Hotel who were calling out to her.
‘I ran and as I turned to look over my shoulder at Matthew – for what I hoped wasn’t the last time – I ran into a volleyball net and fell over.’ Over the next hour, often hysterical, she frantically beseeched hotel staff, anyone in fact who would listen, to get help for Matthew.
The couple have two children, Tegan, six, and Caden, 15 months, who remained at home in Pontypridd, South Wales, with Saera’s parents, while they took the two-week holiday to Sousse.
‘We were also thinking of going to Egypt and decided by flipping a coin,’ said Saera. ‘On the day of the shooting we were late down to the beach because Matthew had to make a work call. He was on the phone for an hour. Another ten minutes and we would have missed it all.’
By the time they reached the beach, their usual spot was taken so they found sun loungers nearer the sea. As they settled down, Matthew noticed two policemen on horseback riding along the shoreline.
‘It was a typical day on the beach. As ever there was a lot going on, people on jet skis and banana boats, others swimming and sunbathing.’
Before the terror: The couple pose for photos by their hotel in Sousse before the massacre
Saera said: ‘As Matthew was putting the sun lotion on me, I was sitting on my lounger facing out to sea diagonally. I remember seeing this jet ski come in about 50 yards away, and park up.’ She thought nothing of it. The man looked like a holidaymaker. Reports have stated that Rezgui arrived on the beach by dinghy, but Saera is adamant this was him arriving on a jet ski.
She didn’t see what happened next, the way Rezgui apparently mingled with holidaymakers, selecting his victims. Two minutes later he reappeared in front of them, having opened fire on the German couple.
‘It was a three-round burst and that’s when I spun round and grabbed Saera,’ said Matthew. ‘And that’s when he shot me. I blacked out for a second or so. I remember being on the floor and rolling and thinking, “Bloody hell, what was that?” because it didn’t hurt for a few seconds. I thought I’d been hit with a firecracker or something.’
Saera added: ‘I thought, “Is this for real – is this a joke?” I thought it might be one of the hotel entertainment workers messing around.’
But moving his hand to his stomach Matthew felt blood, and saw that it soaked his polo shirt. ‘I said, “I’ve been shot” and rolled on to my front so I was facing Saera, who was sobbing and shaking.’
Courageous: Matthew, a 30-year-old gas engineer, was hailed a hero who exemplified the holidaymakers’ resilience in the face of unimaginable terror
In the moments after Saera ran for her life, Matthew experienced a range of emotions – first anger then panic ‘because I truly believed I would never see my family again’.
It was the elderly German man, dying a few feet away, that convinced him however that he might have a slim chance of survival. ‘I could see his face, just blank, and he was making these terrible sounds – like he was desperately snorting in air and then grunting out. Listening to the noises he was making made me realise I wasn’t as bad as him. I thought, “Hang on a minute I can still feel everything.”
‘Some people were shouting at me to get up and run to them. I first got on my side but as I tried to stand up my left leg gave way, it wouldn’t work, and I fell back down.
‘So I crawled to them on my hands and knees and after I got a third of the way they came to me and lifted me up, and I put an arm round each of them. I was in such a bad state that I didn’t notice anything but I did hear the gunshots and two explosions, presumably grenades.’
Matthew was taken to the Bellevue and helped on to a chair. It was only when a Polish holidaymaker saw his stomach wound that a mattress from a sun lounger was found. At this point, Matthew realised he’d been shot through the arm, though he was still unaware of his chest wound.
‘I was holding the Polish guy’s hand and I began to relax, thinking I was safe and would be OK. The adrenaline was wearing off I suppose and I felt really drowsy.’ By now, however, Rezgui, having launched his assault on the Imperial Marhaba, was returning to the beach.
‘I could tell that the gunfire was getting closer again,’ said Matthew. ‘I snapped awake and started shouting that we all needed to get away.
‘They were holding me down but I was screaming, asking where the guards were and if an ambulance was on its way. I was told yes, but I wasn’t convinced and I asked a woman from the hotel to tell the truth. She shook her head.’
With that Matthew managed to haul himself up and staggered out of the restaurant. He was intercepted by an elderly British man who helped him towards one of the hotel’s fire exits. ‘He kept saying, “We’ll be all right, lad.” But by now I was in absolute agony.’
Occasionally he stumbled but eventually the two men made it to a second floor doorway which opened on to a corridor. Nearby, Saera and three other terrified holidaymakers were hiding in a cupboard. ‘I can’t believe he was so close by without me knowing,’ she said.
Both Matthew and Saera believed the gunshots were getting closer again and both were terrified they’d come face to face with him again. As she hid, Saera believed she may even have seen Rezgui prowling the hotel corridor, though she accepts she could have been mistaken. More likely, the shots came from outside.
Matthew decided it would be safer to get higher and, after becoming separated from the pensioner, staggered up another two flights of stairs. Now on the fourth floor he was helped to another stairwell by a Tunisian hotel worker. There, he found a middle-aged British man clutching a Bible and ‘panicking, repeating almost hysterically, “What are we going to do?” ’
The couple have two children, Tegan, six, and Caden, 15 months, who remained at home in Pontypridd, South Wales, with Saera’s parents, while they took the two-week holiday to Sousse
At this point, Matthew, growing weaker by the minute, his stomach feeling as if it were on fire, gave up. He slumped to the ground, soaked in blood and sweat, and, still pressing the towel against his stomach, contemplated death.
‘I remember thinking that I’d had it. I accepted I was going to die and that I’d never see Saera and the kids again. I was rapidly fading.’
But drawing on his last reserves of strength, Matthew made one last attempt to get help. ‘I had this sudden rush of energy and I managed to get back up and ask the Englishman and the Tunisian how to get out. They said the stairs would take me to reception. I think they were just too scared to help me.’
As he staggered outside, the gunfire stopped. After 47 minutes Rezgui was finally cornered and shot dead by Tunisian police.
But Matthew’s battle for survival was still far from over. Outside the hotel he found a police officer with an automatic rifle and collapsed in his arms, hugging him. ‘Finally I was with someone who could protect me. I had a chance now,’ he said.
The officer flagged down a passing ambulance and Matthew found himself inside it with Owen Richards, the 16-year-old boy who lost his brother, grandfather and uncle in the massacre. ‘His elbows were on his knees and he was crying, his head in hands. He said we needed to get away quickly.’
The ambulance crawled through traffic and Matthew lost consciousness. He woke to find a paramedic trying to resuscitate him. ‘He was hurting my chest and I told him to stop,’ said Matthew.
Two minutes later they reached the hospital and Matthew was taken straight into the operating theatre, all the while begging the anaesthetist for news of Saera.
Saera, who had returned to the Marhaba, didn’t know if her fiance was alive or dead. ‘They were bringing bodies up from the beach with sheets over them,’ she said. ‘I knew I had to check the stretchers though they told me not to look. I moved the blanket on each one that went past.
'If the hair colour wasn’t the same as Matthew’s I wouldn’t look at the face. Then I saw some dark hair like his and I thought it was him and the relief when I realised it was someone else was massive. But there was always another body coming and I had to check them all.’
Saera was then told by a holiday rep that Matthew was alive and was about to undergo surgery.
Unimaginable bravery: The 16-stone former rugby prop forward flung himself in front of her and ‘twisted her around and pulled her down to the ground’ just as Rezgui unleashed his second burst of fire
‘I collapsed at the rep’s feet and everyone cheered. It must have been an hour later that I got to speak to him. He said he was fine and that he loved me and I couldn’t believe he was alive. I said I loved him and was coming to him straight away.
‘At the hospital a British woman who had been in the ambulance with him said he died in the ambulance of a heart attack. I was in bits but I realised that this couldn’t be true as I’d spoken to him. I rushed off and found the anaesthetist who told me he was fine and led me to intensive care. I hugged and kissed him – hurting him in the process. It was the most amazing feeling ever – I felt I could breathe again.’
That night, while Saera comforted Matthew in hospital, the couple were visited by dignitaries expressing their regret. One told them that a second man was being held in custody and that he was expected to be beaten to death by police.
Whether that happened is impossible to verify. There have been reports of arrests, but police say the gunman acted alone.
Matthew and Saera, who have brought forward their wedding date to next summer, were flown back to the UK last Sunday. Since then, Matthew has been receiving treatment at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. He expects to be home this week and doctors say he will make a full recovery.
Saera said: ‘I told my daughter that there was bad man who was really nasty to everyone but that Daddy saved Mummy and is a hero.
‘I owe my life to him, there is no question of that. And the way he found the mental and physical strength to keep going after he thought he was going to die was incredible. He is my hero for sure.’
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