Eleven-year-old Jamie de Wet screamed in terror, crying for her mother.
Around her, automatic machine-gun fire shattered windows and hit shoppers as armed robbers ambushed cash-in-transit guards leaving a bank in a Bedfordview mall yesterday.
As guards and the gunmen exchanged fire inside Bedford Centre, Jamie separated from her mother's friend, Linda Moore, and ran as fast as she could. Miraculously, none of the bullets fired by the gunmen hit her. Jamie escaped because Moore went after her and grabbed her as she ran towards the gunfire. The two hid in a hardware store. Their narrow escape was one of many.
Outgunned and wounded, the SBV guards desperately tried to pin down their attackers, who had split into groups, to stop them escaping.
Some of the gunmen ran firing through the centre, while others hid in a store where shoppers had sought refuge.
A total of seven people - three shoppers, two robbers and two guards - were injured.
In the car park, an elderly man, who asked not to be named, hid as a wounded gunman came towards him.
"I was in my car when I heard strange noises. I saw gunmen jumping onto a bakkie. I saw the bleeding gunman dragging himself towards me.