The Survivor

Stuart Anstee was on his first overseas trip when the bombers struck. It was a festive Saturday night at the Sari Club, and the 24-year-old environmental scientist was out with his friend Tim Hawkins, laughing and drinking with a few German and American women they had invited along for the evening. That night, Tim and two of the women died. A friend, Ben Davis, was injured by shrapnel. Another member of the group, Richard Joyes, heard the blast from his hotel room and spent a horrific night searching among the dead and helping the wounded.

That Anstee survived seemed a miracle to many of the doctors who treated him. Pieces of flying glass severed his jugular vein and pierced his carotid artery. A month in the hospital, four operations and a year later, Anstee still doesn't know why his fate was different—how friends standing beside him died while his only physical trouble today is a damaged voice box that makes him sound husky when he's tired.

For months, Anstee's mind endlessly replayed the few details he remembered from that night. But lately he's found some peace and learned to live with his guilt at not being able to save his friends. "I really must make the most of my life," says Anstee, "because I now know how easy it is for people to be here one day and not the next."

So he has pressed on with the plans he had made before Bali, leaving his home in Tasmania and moving to a better job in Perth, with a consulting firm that assesses the environmental impact of mining. He recently attended a barbecue for Bali survivors, where he found some, like him, were "almost back to normal" while others were still consumed by depression and rage. Anger has a place in his life, too—"I know it's illogical, but it's hard not to feel angry toward their religion"—but he's wary of hatred and its destructive hold. He gave evidence at Amrozi's trial but feels only "a numbness" for the bombers themselves.

Anstee will be back in Bali on Oct. 12, this time with his parents and two of his brothers. "After that, it's time for me to try to let Bali fade into the background," he says. "Some people will find it very hard to get over what happened to them. But I'm determined not to let it rule my life." For that would be conceding victory to the bombers who tried to kill him.