Carolyn Loughton and her daughter, Sarah, 15-years-old at the time, had just ordered lunch in the Broad Arrow Cafe when Martin Bryant opened fire among the busy lunchtime crowd in Port Arthur.
"[Sarah] stood up with the most horrific look on her face of sheer and utter terror, because she would have been seeing people shot behind me," Ms Loughton tells Insight's Jenny Brockie.
"When she stood up it meant she was in the line of fire, so I took a step forward and I threw myself onto her and I flattened her to the floor."
On the ground, she whispered to her daughter to stay still, to stay down. They were her last words to her.
The past twenty years have been a difficult process of physical and emotional recovery for Ms Loughton.
After killing her daughter, Bryant shot her in the shoulder; the gun so close, her ear drum exploded. She is still having surgeries to deal with the damage, 20 years on.
During Insight's , airing this week, she confronted NSW Shooters and Fishers Party MLC Robert Brown when he said it was too difficult to acquire a in Australia.
Guns that fall in this category are self-loading, or semi-automatic, but with limited rounds.
"Good! It's meant to be," Ms Loughton interrupted him.
"Have you ever met anybody who's been shot?" she queried Mr Brown.
Mr Brown replied that he had not.
"Well this might be your first opportunity," Ms Loughton continued, before detailing the extensive injuries she sustained from, and as a result of, the bullet fired by Bryant.
Mr Brown argued that while he was sympathetic to Ms Loughton's position, he would not be personally targeted.
"If I'd copped as much as you have had to put up with, I'd be verbose too," he said.
"But I didn't do it to you. I won't allow you to demonise me because of something that happened to you."
Life-long injuries
When the bullet entered Ms Loughton's back, it hit her scapula. Parts of her left hip then had to be removed, "mashed" up to reform the bone in her shoulder.
Infection set in: a kind of gangrene that rots the bone called , which rendered the screws and pins in her back useless. Her nerves were damaged.
Skin graphs had to be applied to the area when it wasn't healing. Complications with her legs and feet followed, as well as the necessary home care and associated costs.
Ms Loughton is currently to have a rapid-fire shotgun, the Adler 110, placed in the Category C class of firearms. Despite being able to shoot 8 bullets in quick succession, it is technically available with the most easily accessible firearms licence, Category A.
A temporary ban on the Alder 110 lifted last August.
Graham Park, a farmer who was a guest on the show, argued that the Adler 110 would be of great assistance in feral animal control, and that the current laws are restrictive enough.
Carolyn Loughton and Robert Brown MLC are guests on Insight's in Australia | Catch up now online:
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'Tighter gun laws could have prevented my dad's death'
