Major update on baby stabbed in Westfield Bondi Junction attack

In welcome news the baby who was a stabbing victim of the knifeman’s rampage at Bondi Junction last Saturday is showing signs of recovery and has improved from a serious but stable to a stable condition. 

The nine-month-old baby girl’s 38-year-old mother Ashlee Good was of six casualties of crazed Joel Cauchi’s stabbing spree at the Sydney shopping centre and with her dying act she passed the infant, named Harriet, to two brothers to save her life.

NSW health officials announced the improvement in Harriet’s condition on Friday afternoon and also provided updates on other surviving victims of the horrific stabbing spree in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. 

‘Some patients have been treated and discharged, while six patients continue to receive care in hospital for their injuries’, a NSW Health spokesperson said.

Two patients remain at Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital – a man and woman who are both stable. 

The woman remained in ICU in a serious but stable condition, while the man is in a stable condition being treated in a general ward.

Another female patient is at Royal North Shore Hospital in a stable condition. 

On Tuesday it was announced Harriet had been moved out of Intensive Care Unit  into a normal ward at the Sydney Children’s Hospital. 

After Cauchi, 40, stabbed both Ms Good and Harriet with a 30cm-long hunting knife the fatally wounded mother managed to hand the infant over to the brothers, who she did not know, with the desperate plea  to ‘please help, help’.

The brothers, joe and Rick Tomarchio, were at shopping centre pair when they witnessed Ms Good and Harriet get stabbed by Cauchi about 3.20pm.

The siblings then quickly ushered the wounded mother and daughter into a Tommy Hilfiger store in a desperate attempt to save their lives – 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.

Now, Daily Mail Australia can reveal Joe, a Sydney banker, 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 Good Samaritan 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 told media 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 had stopped to help as she laid on the road during peak hour traffic.

The woman’s daughter hailed him as a star, saying when she initially saw her mother, she thought she was dead.

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