Strength of character keeps survivor Lynley moving on

Had I accidentally met her, the welcoming smile, the greeting and the poise would not have given any hint that Lynley Huguenin had suffered horrific burns over 30 percent of her body less than a year ago.

Admittedly, it was a fresh spring day in Melbourne, and the weather was still fairly nippy, so she was wearing clothes covering her arms and all her back.

Huguenin, 23, is a beautician by training, and beautiful to look at. But her physical good looks pale somewhat when compared to the gumption and determination she possesses, and which, at crucial times, possess her.

On the evening of Oct. 12, 2002, Huguenin, having arrived in Bali earlier that day, was meeting some friends for after-dinner drinks at Paddy's Bar on Jl. Legian, Kuta. They were enjoying themselves and completely oblivious to what was going to hit them.

But a huge explosion from a bomb attached to the perpetrator's vest threw them several meters from where they had been standing. She landed among debris in clouds of dust beside her friend Kim. When she recovered her wits and got up, she saw fire down her neck, back and arms, so she quickly rolled on the ground to put it out.

The two young women escaped from being blown to pieces only by a matter of minutes. Huguenin, driven by survival instincts, grabbed Kim and rushed out the back of the building before it was swallowed by the fire from the second explosion.

Now several operations and skin grafts later, she still remembers her horrendous experience -- every minute of it -- for she still carries the scars on her body. Reporters from various media still call her each time something newsy reaches Australia from the trials of the alleged bombers in Denpasar. When she walks in the streets, people recognize her and ask her how she is.

Naturally, the experience has had a tremendous effect on her. It has opened up another, a wider, perspective on life to her. Trained as a beautician, she was conditioned to focus on people's body image, on how to improve on it, or how to minimize the effects of existing injuries.

"Now when I see someone with a physical defect, I just look beyond that and emphasize their personality. I know how they're feeling when I look at them."

Asked if she found it hard knowing she had scars on such large areas of her body, Huguenin said, "Yes, it is hard. I was used to diagnosing other people's injuries, now it is me who has to live with extensive scars, me who has had to wear a body suit for nine months, and who still has more surgery to be done."

Without a hint of self-pity, she continued, "But I don't let it run my life. I still wear normal clothes as much as possible.

"And it is interesting to observe how people react to me," she added with a smile.

Her resilience and mental strength are apparent in her ability to organize her life in such a way that she also looks ahead and plans ahead while never denying what happened to her.

She is going ahead with her business, importing homeware and giftware from Bali. To her parents' horror, she has been back several times to Bali.

"I had promised people in Bali that I'd pick up my orders. I didn't want to let them down," she explained.

"I'm not going to let what happened to me make me full of fear. I'm not going to wrap myself in cotton wool and never experience life. I feel the drive to move on. And I am moving on."

She has been invited to give motivational talks to school students.

"I want young people to still go out and experience things for themselves, rather than through textbooks only. I think it is important that you still continue to do what you want to do. I have my own restrictions, of course. I like to go out in the sun, but I can't do that any more. I have to watch my time in the sun when I'm in Bali. I have to wear more clothes than other people, though it is very hot."

One of her problems is convincing her family that she needs to do what she is doing.

"Obviously I bounded back quickly. Dealing with my situation is my actual therapy. My family, especially my parents, are finding it hard. They are still dwelling on it, thinking about how it has been, how it might have been, how it should have been.

"A lot of under the surface tension often erupts. They probably still feel that they should have been there with me, protecting me. But at the end of the day, I'm the one who has to deal with it."

It's her strength of character that keeps her going. In between skin graft operations, she received calls from reporters, asking her what she thought of Amrozi being allowed in the sun for 10 minutes when she herself was still injured.

"I said I refuse to comment on that. It's irrelevant to me. Whether he has 10 minutes in the sun or an hour in the shade, it's not going to help anybody," she said, adding that the legal system did a "fantastic" job in the trials.

But are there still dark days when she is pulled back to the horror of that terrible night?

"Of course. You have a very huge mixed amount of emotions every day. We got together a support group. From there I get a full structure of friends. For us we don't have to say anything, we just know and understand each other."

And she believes that, in time, people will eventually return to Bali, just as she already has.

-- Dewi Anggraeni