Victim remains resolute after losing foot at Westgate

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night,

Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine.

– From Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Rachel Wambui Muraya struggled to wake up on Saturday September 21 as she did not feel like going to work.

The young woman who had worked at Ashley’s since 2010 says: “I woke up feeling like I did not want to go to work that morning. One half of my heart was telling me not to go and the other half was telling me to go.”

Hours later, she would find herself in the midst of a terrifying terror attack at her workplace. For Rachel, however, tragedy seems to have confronted her much earlier and in a very painful way.

It started when she met the love of her life Paul Kamau and a wedding date was set for October 20, 2012 – appropriately on Mashujaa Day. Like every woman, it was a day she looked forward to with youthful excitement.

The girl who grew up in Mombasa had her dream wedding at Consolata Shrine in Westlands. She says:”We spent Sh600,000 on the wedding and had 300 guests.”

Two weeks later, on November 9, after their big day and honeymoon, her new husband Kamau fell sick and died suddenly. Rachel says his medical condition was misdiagnosed and everything happened so fast. It felt like somebody had ripped her heart to pieces.

“All our dreams of a life together and a bright future were gone,” she said.

It’s a chapter in her life that Rachel would rather not talk about. But it taught her that life was fragile and she never took anything for granted. Her family was very supportive during the agonising period. She moved on with her life.

Fast forward to last year and Rachel recalls waking up at about 10am on September 21. She did not feel like going to work but she had set an appointment with a client at 1pm. She did not want to let her client down.

She boarded a matatu to town to pick up a parcel her father had sent from Mombasa and then connected to Westlands.

“On the way, I passed by Ashley’s branch at the Mall and said hello to my cousin Rachel Wambui. She escorted me to Westgate where I arrived at about 11:45am and I signed in.”

She escorted her cousin out and remembers passing by the Millionaires Casino when the mall lights went off. By the time they got to Nakumatt, they heard loud shooting.

“Some people told us there were thugs who had come to steal from the Barclays Bank on ground floor. But the shooting continued and it was so loud.”

Concerned that the shooting was not subsiding, she says she looked down the stairs and could see people running below. She realised that it was a terror attack.

“I wanted to go to the salon but felt it was not a safe place. I decided to run to the second floor parking.”

At that moment, Muraya was split up with her cousin. In that frantic moment, her cousin had decided to run back to the salon.

Muraya’s escape route was fraught with risks. She was determined not to die. Bullets were flying left right and centre. It felt like she had landed in a war zone. So she ran as fast as her feet to could carry her.

What she did not know was that one of the terrorists had spotted her making her way across the parking lot. He lobbed a grenade in her direction and it landed right in front of her.

The explosion jolted her but what followed next was even worse. She felt excruciating pain in her legs. Part of her right foot was nearly blown off and her left foot was hit with a shrapnel.

FIVE OPERATIONS

Miraculously, the attacker did not follow up to finish her. So she stayed in the same spot with other victims hiding for over one-and-a-half hours.

It was the Red Cross Director Abbas Gullet who found her.

Muraya was put in an ambulance and rushed to hospital.

“I have undergone five operations, three at Mater and two at Aga Khan. The last one was in June this year to remove the shrapnel,” she says.

She says the Red Cross has met many of her medical bills.

Regarding the attackers she says,” I just told God to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing.”

Her life has changed dramatically. Besides the trauma of what she experienced and witnessed, her right foot was amputated and now she has a pegleg. She walks with a slight limp but appreciates that it could have been worse. There were many others who did not make it out of Westgate alive.

Her manager and friend at the new Ashley’s at Lavington Mall, Nelly Ngere, has seen the transformation that Muraya has undergone.

“She is a very brave woman. She has been through so much, losing her husband two weeks after their wedding and then losing her foot at Westgate. Rachel is very strong person.”

Nelly says that what Muraya misses most is wearing high heels, which is difficult when you have a prosthetic foot. Rachel believes her strength to move on has been grounded in her faith. “I put God first above everything.”

But she admits that life after Westgate has been difficult.

“My parents had to move from Mombasa to Nairobi to take care of me during my recovery. My boss, Ashley Mungai, used to come and visit me every Saturday to see my progress. I had to use a wheelchair and now have to use crutches.”

But she is most grateful that her cousin Rachel survived the ordeal and two were later re-united.