Community Code Blue: The Sydney Jewish Community's Medical Preparations and Response to the Bondi Beach Terror Attack of December 2025

Ethnocultural minority communities may require specialised emergency response frameworks during mass casualty incidents (MCIs). This article describes the Sydney Jewish community's preparation for, and medical response to, the Bondi Beach terror attack of 14 December 2025. We present a timeline of events during the attack and outline the immediate medical response and recovery actions undertaken in the first hours and days following the incident, including first-hand accounts of responders from the scene. Alongside this account, we present a novel response model implemented by the New South Wales Community Health Support (CHS). CHS is a community-operated, not-for-profit emergency medical response organisation that provides telehealth advice and dispatches volunteer community first responders (including health professionals and trained emergency healthcare workers) to urgent and emergency health incidents within the local community. CHS operates alongside statutory emergency services and is embedded within the community it serves. It is hoped that the lessons identified from this incident may be valuable to the broader international medical community, emergency management agencies and policymakers, and that it may serve as an exemplar for other communities seeking to strengthen preparedness, coordination and resilience in the face of future MCIs.

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Publication Details

Journal
The Medical Journal of Australia
Published
2026-04-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5694/mja2.70179
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Disaster Response and Management
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
43.38
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article

Community Code Blue: The Sydney Jewish Community's Medical Preparations and Response to the Bondi Beach Terror Attack of December 2025

Zachariah Seidman, A. Baron, Jesse Lenn, Jeffrey L. Engelman et al.
1 citations
The Medical Journal of Australia
Disaster Response and Management
43.38
article

Community Code Blue: The Sydney Jewish Community's Medical Preparations and Response to the Bondi Beach Terror Attack of December 2025

Zachariah Seidman, A. Baron, Jesse Lenn, Jeffrey L. Engelman, Matthew N. Lowy
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Ethnocultural minority communities may require specialised emergency response frameworks during mass casualty incidents (MCIs). This article describes the Sydney Jewish community's preparation for, and medical response to, the Bondi Beach terror attack of 14 December 2025. We present a timeline of events during the attack and outline the immediate medical response and recovery actions undertaken in the first hours and days following the incident, including first-hand accounts of responders from the scene. Alongside this account, we present a novel response model implemented by the New South Wales Community Health Support (CHS). CHS is a community-operated, not-for-profit emergency medical response organisation that provides telehealth advice and dispatches volunteer community first responders (including health professionals and trained emergency healthcare workers) to urgent and emergency health incidents within the local community. CHS operates alongside statutory emergency services and is embedded within the community it serves. It is hoped that the lessons identified from this incident may be valuable to the broader international medical community, emergency management agencies and policymakers, and that it may serve as an exemplar for other communities seeking to strengthen preparedness, coordination and resilience in the face of future MCIs.

The Medical Journal of AustraliaVol. 224(4)
The University of Sydney (AU), New South Wales Department of Health (AU), Royal North Shore Hospital (AU), UNSW Sydney (AU), St Vincent’s Private Hospital Sydney (AU), St George Hospital (AU), Western Sydney University (AU)
Openalex Percentile: Top 0%
Disaster Response and Management
43.38
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