Saera Wilson and her fiancé Matthew James were enjoying the vacation of a lifetime when their lives were forever changed. Saera and Matthew were sunbathing near the Bellevue Hotel in Sousse, Tunisia when extremists attacked the resort on June 26.
Moments after the shooting began, Matthew shielded Saera by moving between her and the gunmen. Matthew took three bullets to his stomach, but still managed to help Saera.
“I love you, babe,” Matthew told her. “Just go and tell our children that daddy loves them.”
Saera made a mad dash for the couple’s hotel, where she hid in a cupboard until she believed it was safe.
“It was just chaos,” Saera told BBC News. “I had to just leave him because the shooting just kept coming.”
Sometime after the gunfire ceased, Saera emerged from her hiding place and returned to the beach to search for Matthew. She began searching among the dead and wounded, hoping to find some sign of her fiancé. More than two hours later, someone handed her a phone.
“There’s a grumpy man that insists he speak with you,” they said.
“It was Matthew and he told me that he loved me,” Saera said. “He’d been rushed away and underwent an operation to save his life.”
Matthew had a broken pelvis and had also suffered a heart attack, but he was alive.
The two plan to return home to Wales to their children, Tegan and Kaden. The couple still plan to wed in 2017.