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I’m okay: teenage victim emerges after bomb hoax

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Summary of story from Canberra Times, sick August 6, 2011

Flanked by her mother and older brother, Australian teenager, Madeleine Pulver, faced a world changed by her terrifying, ten-hour ordeal strapped to a suspected bomb with a bike chain in her home in Australia (see WVoN story).

‘‘I’m okay, thank you,’’ the 18-year-old said as she climbed into the family’s BMW with her three brothers.

On a sunny, pre-spring day in the normally quiet waterside street, neighbours and friends dropped by with groceries and kind words. A local florist delivering flowers said police were searching some bunches before they could be taken inside the Pulvers’ home.

A young friend who came to comfort the family said her peers were overwhelmed by what had happened.

‘‘Everyone’s pretty traumatised and feels really bad that she had to go through something like that,’’ she said. ‘‘But I think she’s a strong girl and I think she’ll make it through.

Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said the investigation was ‘‘well advanced’’.

‘‘This is the sort of crime we haven’t seen in Australia before and, for that reason, it’s important we keep a close watch on it,’’ he said, comparing the investigation to the brutal murder of five members of the Lin family in Epping in 2009.

‘‘We’re going to let the investigators get on with their job, do what has to be done.

‘‘They will tie down every lead.

This will be a lengthy investigation,’’ he said.

The police officer who sat alone with Ms Pulver, a Wenona Girls’ School Year 12 student, for two hours before bomb experts wearing protective clothing entered the three-storey house on Wednesday, described the young woman as ‘‘the strongest girl in the world’’.

WVoN comment: How absolutely terrifying this must have been – ten hours thinking you could be blown to pieces any minute. Awful.

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