Backpacker stabbing attack surviver speaks
A backpacker who survived a stabbing rampage in a north Queensland hostel says he broke both his legs while trying to warn others about the attacker.
Chris Porter, 21, shared a room with Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 21, and her alleged murderer Frenchman Smail Ayad, 29 before the frenzied attack at the Home Hill backpacker's hostel.
Smail Ayad and Mia Ayliffe-Chung. Source: Facebook
He says he climbed a balcony and tried to raise the alarm after the violence began.
"I tried to warn the other girls to lock their doors and as I came back down again I didn't realise how high up it was and just fell," Mr Porter told 7 News.
His fall from the balcony resulted in both of his legs being broken.
In the following hours Ms Ayliffe-Chung was tragically killed and fellow backpacker Tom Jackson was morally wounded coming to her aid and died in hospital days later.
Ms Ayliffe-Chung had spent most of the year living at the Surfers Paradise where she worked at The Bedroom nightclub but left in August to spend three months working on North Queensland farms to extend her holiday visa.
She found a room at the Home Hill backpacker hostel where she would meet the man who would allegedly go on to kill her.
Mia Ayliffe-Chung. Source: 7News
Police at the Home Hill scene. Source: 7News
Mr Porter said he only had one question for the man who allegedly murdered his two fellow travellers.
"Why?" he said. "Why is the main question."
Ms Ayliffe-Chung's mother, Rosie Ayliffe, said goodbye to her daughter in a private funeral on the Gold Coast last week.
She told AAP she had only found out about Mr Jackson's sacrifice after she arrived in Australia.
"None of us took the news well," she wrote in The Independent, where she is writing a daily blog tracking her grief.
"It was devastating to hear that this heroic man had died trying to save Mia's life and I, for one, dissolved again into the hopeless sobbing that had plagued me for most of the flight."
She also revealed the man overseeing the investigation into her daughter's death, Townsville Regional Crime Co-ordinator Ray Rohweder broke down as he gave her an account of Mia's final moments.
Both Rosie Ayliffe and Chris Porter said they wanted to honour an idea Mia had about creating a website about working holidays with safety tips to help keep young backpackers safe.
