Barnes, lead singer in the band Cold Chisel, his family and friends were on their way to a restaurant at the nearby Intercontinental Hotel when they had to decide the best way to cross the busy intersection.
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Jimmy and Jane Barnes and family are fine this morning and out of danger after being just 50 metres from a bomb blast in Bangkok overnight.
Speaking to the AAP from his Bangkok hotel, Barnes recounted the last-second decision that potentially saved his life and that of of his Thai-Australian wife Jane, daughter Elly-May, son-in-law Liam Conboy, and grandson Dylan.
As they jostled for space with other pedestrians, high above the road way, a bomb exploded outside the shrine with terrifying force, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than 120 others.
Phnom Penh Post’s managing editor, Alan Parkhouse, was with the Barnes family and said they had contemplated walking past the shrine to their dinner venue but instead took an overhead walkway.
The group opted for the overhead route- a decision that saved their lives.
His wife, Jane, later shared a photo of the aftermath as she made her way back to their hotel.
We carefully made our way back into the hotel restaurant, nappies in hand. “Other bombs defused. So bad, so sad”.
Australia has obviously condemned the attack, with DFAT now working with Thai authorities to determine whether any Aussies have been hurt, although there have been no reports at this stage.
Body parts were reportedly scattered across the street after the bomb went off outside the Erawan Shrine in the downtown Chidlom district of the Thai capital.
‘The foyer of the hotel was chaotic with people running both in and out, but we were safe there’. At that point, Barnes said they nearly walked “into the bomb” because they couldn’t find the linking passageway to the Intercontinental Hotel.
Melbourne man Hussain Masri was on his way to an ATM when the bomb went off and says he might also have been caught up in the blast if he’d not changed route to avoid traffic. “But I said I think it’s the next floor so I took them all in the elevator again to come down. We got struck by shrapnel and debris”.
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“It was very surreal to go down after and to see the bodies of the people, to see people injured”.
