AGAINST ALL ODDS

It's 20 years since 202 people were killed in bomb blasts in Bali. At the time, doctors believed Therese Fox would die from her injuries, but she defied the odds to continue life as a mother, a nurse and then a grandmother.

- MEGAN NORRIS

The vertical scars that run down Therese Fox's arms and legs stand out among the fading patchwork of burns and skin grafts that are hidden beneath her nurse's uniform. Unlike the injuries that were scorched onto her body when suicide bombers attacked two crowded tourist hotspots in Bali, in October 2002 killing 202 innocent people and injuring hundreds more these scars were not inflicted by hate.

They are the scars made by army doctors aboard a military aircraft at Denpasar Airport, as they battled to airlift the Victorian mother back to Australia to say goodbye to her children.

Nobody expected Therese, then 29, to survive the flight back to Darwin, or the air transfer to Sydney's Concord Hospital. There, specialists assessing the horrific third-degree burns covering 85 per cent of her body, said there was no chance anyone could survive such devastating injuries. They were wrong.

As the nation marks the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack that claimed the life of her friend, Bronwyn Cartwright, and 87 other Australians, Therese continues to rise phoenix-like from the ashes. She is living up to the nickname she was given at Concord, "The Miracle Woman of Bali".

It's been a long and agonising road back to health for the intensely private mother-of-two who has defied extraordinary odds to rebuild her life after an idyllic holiday in paradise became a nightmare.

Today, reflecting on the doomed trip from her home in the small township of Grovedale, where she and her twin brother, Damien, both adopted, grew up, she recalls the rocky prelude to her girls-only getaway and wonders if it was a sign of things to come. "When we booked to go to Bali in late 2001, it was supposed to be a holiday for four, but Bronwyn's younger sister, Jess, pulled out and so did our friend, Michelle Larkins," Therese tells The Weekly.