Kellie Sloane had a different speech prepared for the vigil on Bondi Beach to mark one week after the worst terror attack in Australia's history.
Her words were beautiful, a rabbi said. But then he politely told her to start again.
Because the NSW opposition leader was not merely a political figure addressing the thousands still mourning – she was one of the heroes trying to save lives even as the gunmen were still firing.
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She was under the bridge where the shots were being fired from, and what she saw "will haunt me forever".
"I stand before you as someone who saw the devastation, who arrived here last week while the shots were still being fired, who witnessed the chaos and the distress and who saw the injured and who held the hands of those who needed their hands held," she told the vigil last night.
Earlier on December 14, Sloane had been celebrating the first day of Hanukkah nearby at Dover Heights.
People were laughing and there was dancing.
Sloane had been on stage ready to address the crowd, tragically about the hope she had after a horror start to the year.
But she didn't get to those words. She saw a crowd start to run, disperse and security guards locking down the event.
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Rabbi Mendy Litzman was there with his ambulance and Sloane jumped in.
"I don't know that he needed an extra passenger but he was on the phone to his colleague … who had been shot and he was in a bad state."
They raced to Bondi and arrived within minutes, parking under the bridge while the gunmen were still on top.
Litzman grabbed his kit and raced to the scene and began "making impossible choices about who to deal with first and who to treat".
"I helped a man and his 10-year-old boy who were hiding under that bridge get into our ambulance because I thought they'd be safer there," Sloane said.
"And then I walked into the scene.
"What I saw will haunt me forever.
"But I saw police running into this scene fast and unhesitatingly, with guns drawn, headed into danger.
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"And I heard … the final pop, pop, pop of gunfire", as the shooters were finally stopped.
"I tried my best to help, a surf lifesaver told me, 'grab bandages'. I said, 'what do I do?' And he said, "plug the holes'."
Sloane sat next to the injured and dying, "holding their hands, putting blankets over people who we couldn't help anymore".
"I had people fall into my arms who were grief stricken because they felt that they hadn't done enough, and we all felt that way.
"But, man, I saw them as heroes, and they were heroes.
"And there was nothing more any of us could do."
The crowd warmly embraced Sloane as she recounted her horrors, celebrating the heroics of others as she pointed them out.
The member for Vaucluse said the first draft of her speech omitted what she herself saw on December 14 "because my experience felt absolutely insignificant compared to that of so many others who are sitting here tonight".
And it felt raw, she said.
Rabbi Eli Feldman convinced her to make changes.
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"He said the words I had were appropriate and they were beautiful but that I had a bigger story to tell, that I have shared something with this community that must be retold.
"[He] said to me that bearing witness and recounting that story might be hard and it might be confronting … but it is important, and he is right."
'Antisemitism has led to blood spilling on our most iconic beach'
Sloane said the attack came after a year in which Jewish people in Australia had been "abused".
The year started with "our community facing consistent firebombings, almost day after day, and vandalism," she said.
"Helicopters flying over our houses at night, while we slept, to keep our Jewish neighbours safe.
"A year where the Jewish community had been doxed, they'd been abused, they'd been unable to attend university.
"They'd been abandoned by old friends and colleagues in the most heartbreaking way."
Jewish people had been accused of overreacting, she said.
"Very few … paid attention when community leaders warned that history … history tells us that hate speech makes violence possible.
"How could anyone who is a student of history deny that broken windows lead to violence?
"Well, let there be no doubt now. Antisemitism has now led to the spilling of blood on our nation's most iconic beach."
Sloane plans to read the names of the victims in NSW parliament as she reckons with "what do we do now?"
"How do we comprehend what has happened to our country?"
She said she clings to the outpouring of love in the wake of the attacks.
"It's given me hope that we will mend together.
"I am in pieces with you but I will be strong like you are strong, and you inspire me. And together … we will find the light together."