Evidence has emerged that Lindt Cafe hostage Katrina Dawson suffered seven gunshot wounds during the siege after an inquest into the siege has commenced.
News Corp reports that the inquest heard 55 grains of bullet fragment were removed from her body. The injuries were sustained at the end of the stand-off when police stormed the building. She was hit in the right shoulder, upper back, left shoulder, left upper back and neck area, upper back and neck area, and twice in the right side of the neck.
After investigating the content of the bullets, copper content was found in the ones that struck Dawson, confirming that they were from the Tactical Operations Unit officer’s weapons. A ballistics expert told the inquest that the bullets must have fragmented after hitting a chair during the police siege after the gunman, Man Haron Monis, executed the Lindt cafe manager, Tori Johnson.
Though she still had a pulse when police found her lying under a table and chairs in the corner of the cafe, she later died from her injuries.
Dawson was an alumna of the University of Sydney, a barrister and a mother of three. She was at the cafe getting a coffee with one of the survivors, Stefan Balafoutis, when the hostage situation occurred.
The inquest continues.
