The first widow to give evidence in the March 15 coronial inquest emotionally recounted being forced to leave her conscious, dying husband at Linwood Mosque with her hands above her head.
Grieving widow Saira Patel spent more than 24 hours asking police, ambulance, hospital staff and strangers what had happened to him and, the next day, was forced to ask then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern if she knew where he was.
On Tuesday, Patel was joined in the dock by her son for support as she recounted the terror as they were praying in Linwood Mosque.
"As I was bending over for second time, I heard a loud sound... [I] thought it was tyre blown," she said.
Saira and her husband Musa Patel were only visiting Christchurch. He had been a highly respected Imam in Fiji for 25 years.
"My husband shouted out to me to get down," Saira said. "I got down on the ground behind the partition. I could hear so much gunfire around.
"I looked at my husband who was still leaning against the wall and called for him to come to me. I thought this was our last day and I thought if we were going to die, we would die together.
"He was praying his last prayer and he looked at me shaking his head - it was as if he knew he was about to die."
As chaos unfolded, Saira said she began yelling for help.
"I went back to my husband, I held him next to me - he was sweating so much. I was yelling for help… 'Please call ambulance, please help.'
"Police took a lot of time to come into the mosque
"He was holding my head gently and squeezing my hands so softly... I thought he was slipping away.
"I thought, we were in NZ and we were safe and someone would save him."
She was then told to leave the mosque with her hands on her head and away from her dying Musa.
"Police told me to leave... Police told me I had to leave.
"I didn’t want to leave... I said, 'No.'"
Forced out and eventually dropped at the hospital still desperately searching for Musa, she was at first denied entry.
"[I was] finally let in. [It was] very crowded and people were covered in blood.
"[There was a] man with gunshot wound just sitting there…. It was chaos."
Saira was at the hospital until 3am and went home still not knowing if her husband was dead or alive. The next day she asked a stranger to take her to a mosque but found out nothing. She was forced to wait to meet Ardern.
"I still can't believe I had to take the problem to the Prime Minister but I pushed myself to front of the crowd so I could ask her what happened... This is what still causes me distress to this day."
She pleaded with the Prime Minister for help.
"I told her that I heard a man in ICU... might be my husband. I was very distressed," Saira said. "I still can't forget the beautiful kind nature of the then-Prime Minister... she was so kind."
She believes she will meet her husband in the afterlife but remains traumatised by the response that day.
"I can accept my husband's death but not police or ambulance... the hospital [was] not good either."
She also can't forget being forced away from the man she called her shield, her umbrella.
"Any dying person about to leave this world would be desperately craving and needing to be close to their loved ones. [His] final moment would have made a big difference in my life and his final moments in departing this world."
Saira met Ardern once again a year later in Fiji where a plaque now sits in Musa's honour.
