I asked God to spare my life so that I could have a baby

What you need to know:

  • Despite the happy thought of holding a baby, she also thought of what her funeral would be like.
  • She even thought of the portrait her family would place on her casket and the speeches that would be made.

Esther Wanjiru Thami carefully cuddles her three-month-old daughter.

To the first-time mother, baby Riley is a stark reminder of her miraculous escape from death during the Westgate attack last year.

The child is also a fulfillment of a promise she made to herself and God after she survived the attack.

Wanjiru says she came face to face with the terrorists who killed at least 67 people at the high-end shopping mall on September 21 last year and cheated death after she was shot in the leg and left to bleed for hours before she was rescued.

Wanjiru, in her mid-twenties vividly remembers the events on that day; how she bumped into two terrorists when she went to determine the cause of the blasts coming from the lower floors.

“The two terrorists were just two meters away from me, and I saw them shoot an old woman of Asian descent on the chin,” she said. ‘They only managed to shoot me behind my knee.”

“I thank God the single bullet did not break any bone neither did I lose my life despite bleeding for hours,” said Ms Thami during an interview in Zimmerman in Nairobi’s Eastlands.

“As I lay on the floor bleeding with other injured and scared shoppers on top of me, I asked God to save me and promised myself that should I live to see another day, I would immediately get a child. I couldn’t imagine dying without leaving some lineage behind,” she said.

She conceived a month later.

HEARD A LOUD BANG

Wanjiru, who worked as a sales executive at an Adidas store on the second floor of the mall, says the day was like any other Saturday; it had been a very busy weekend with customers flowing in endlessly.

At around 11:50 a.m. when she was inside the shop with her colleagues, the lights went off and she heard a loud bang coming from the floor below them.

“I went out to investigate and on checking, I saw people lying down at Nakumatt Supermarket which was below our shop. However, I did not take it seriously as I thought it was a robbery incident which would be over in a few minutes and which would not affect us much,” she added.

HUDDLED IN A CORNER

Thinking that the “robbers” would not reach their shop, she decided to call her mother and tell her about the incident. It was while she was making the call, that the two terrorists appeared from nowhere.

“I froze when they begun to shoot aimlessly and saw them shoot the Asian woman on the chin. I dived for cover and that was when I felt a sharp pain in my leg like a pin had pricked me,” she recalled.

Wanjiru only realised that she had been shot in her left leg when she saw holes in her trousers.

She says that she, together with other shoppers, huddled in one corner as the frenzied shooting continued.

“Sometimes I could hear what sounded like a bullet hitting someone, but I did not dare look up as I lay on my stomach playing dead”.

“I managed to call my husband and mother and explained to them the situation, but then my phone went off after running out of battery power”.

And all that Wanjiru would think about as she lay face down was that she’d was about to die without leaving an offspring.

“I could not imagine dying without leaving children behind, and I resolved that if God would deliver me, I would praise him forever and also get a child immediately.”

But despite the happy thought of holding a baby, she also thought of what her funeral would be like. She even thought of the portrait her family would place on her casket and the speeches that would be made.

Her fear was that the terrorists would bomb the whole place and everyone would be annihilated in a second. But luckily for her, help came after what seemed like eternity. She remembers seeing bodies all over.

She was taken to Aga Khan Hospital where anxious relatives were waiting. She was treated and allowed to go home. She also underwent counselling sessions which she said were facilitated by her employer Deacons Kenya Limited.

Though she went back to work at a different store after two months, Wanjiru says loud noises still scare her.

“I had never heard a gunshot before, and even now it would scare me, but I have recovered a great deal,” she said.