A year ago Louisa Hope stepped into a cafe for a cup of coffee and her life changed.
She was one of 18 Australians who became unwitting players in a day-long siege at Martin Place in the heart of Sydney.
"It was an ordinary day and then the next minute it was insanity," she says.
"For a split second, I thought it was a bad joke. But then a man pulled out a gun and I realised it was very serious."
At the end of the 17-hour siege, gunman Man Haron Monis used Ms Hope and her 73-year-old mother as human shields when police stormed the Lindt Cafe in a hail of gunfire.
"I thought I was going to die," she says.
"The firestorm that was the end - it was quite terrifying."
She was shot in the foot. The gunman and two of the hostages, cafe manager Tori Johnson and lawyer Katrina Dawson, lay dead.
Ms Hope spent three months in hospital and has since endured innumerable appointments and physiotherapy sessions to allow her to walk again.
But rather than dwell on her misfortune, Ms Hope, 53, is using her experience as a force for change.
"There's no time to be wishing it all away," she says as the anniversary of the siege, which began on December 15, nears.
"There's a purpose for me being there that day. It's my duty to work with that."
But it hasn't been straightforward.
She still has moments of distress.
"You're fine and then, whoosh - in comes another piece of information or a new question," she says.
"Did this, in my ordinary life, happen?
"It sort of takes you back and you are reminded again that, yes, this did happen to our country and I was there that day. That moment of reckoning."
Reverend Bill Crews, who helped counsel some of the hostages, says the trauma of the siege will take a long time to overcome.
"This sort of thing takes years and a lot of talking through," he says.
"The anniversary will be really traumatic for them because it brings it all back."
Rev Crews, who led the funeral service for Tori Johnson, saw how the hostages clung to each other in the aftermath, even as the city opened its heart to them.
Martin Place was blanketed with flowers and cards.
Premier Mike Baird spoke from the heart when he told Sydneysiders: "The values we held dear yesterday we hold dear today - values of freedom, democracy and harmony. They define us yesterday, today, tomorrow."
For him, the flowers represented the spirit of the city.
As the months wore on, Mr Baird reflected on how Sydney responded.
"It's probably my proudest moment in this state," he said.
"I've never seen anything like it - never experienced anything like it - where people of all different faiths, backgrounds, ages, cultures came together as one."
In Ms Hope's view, Australia had to find a way forward.
"Our country was on a knife-edge," she told AAP.
"I felt very strongly that we had to get something positive and good out of this scenario ... that we cannot let ourselves be defeated.
"We could retreat and we could become suspicious," she said.
"I would hope that doesn't happen to us, because that is part of what makes us Australian, that generosity of spirit and open-heartedness towards strangers, visitors, friends and foreigners."
Her sentiments are more than mere words.
She is determined to give back to the nurses who helped her through a painful recovery at the Prince of Wales Hospital.
With the $25,000 fee she received for an interview with the current affairs program 60 Minutes she founded the Louisa Hope Fund for Nurses.
It has now raised almost $100,000 for research and already provided for equipment such as a new monitoring device to measure patients' vital signs.
"That will hopefully bring some good out of what happened," Ms Hope says.
"How blessed am I to have that chance?"
* Donations to the Louisa Hope Fund for Nurses for the Prince of Wales Hospital can be made at www.powhf.org.au
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