While his family slept, Joe found a name that took him back to the worst night of his life

It was late one night, and Joe Frost was sitting up in bed deep in the weeds of a PDF when he saw it. A name.

The faceless, nameless man who'd haunted so much of his adulthood had an identity.

"I remember thinking, I'm going to wake up my wife and tell her. Then I was like, does she need to know this information? [For me] It was an enormous moment," Frost told Mamamia's True Crime Conversations.

The man was Salek Ferdos. In 2005, he was one of three suicide bombers who detonated himself on the evening of October 1 in Bali, killing 20 people and injuring hundreds.

Watch: Four Australians died in the Bali terror attack. Post continues below.

Frost survived, but three people at his table didn't — Colin and Fiona Zwolinksi and Jennifer Williamson. Ferdos had been standing right behind Frost when he ignited his bomb.

"I will never understand how I wasn't hit by any shrapnel whatsoever, it completely bypassed me. As I was to find out in the weeks and months later, basically I'd been standing so close [to the] bomber when the bomb went off.

"The initial shock wave hit me and knocked me to the ground, and then the shrapnel hit the people around me. My proximity to the bomber was what saved me."

One minute Frost was standing, the next he wasn't.

The Jimbaran fish café the morning after the 2005 bombs. Image: Getty/Jason Childs.

"I was holding the back of my chair, and then I was in the sand," he recalled. "There was no moment of falling down or noticing myself [falling]. It didn't go bang, because my ears were just blasted out. I lost both eardrums, and I was like wedged into the sand."

As Frost regained some semblance of sense, he immediately ran for the water. When he looked down, he was wearing half a shirt and his underwear. The force of the bomb had stripped his clothes from him.

The next hour was terrifying. He was trying to find the group of 17 other people from his hometown who he'd come to the beach with. Eventually, he made it back to his hotel in Kuta where he was reunited with his parents and siblings who'd stayed back to rest after a busy day sightseeing.

That night in Bali changed Frost's life forever.

Although his physical injuries were minimal, psychologically, it has affected him for decades.

Joe Frost (seated on the right), at Sanglah Hospital the morning after the attack, waiting for news of those injured in this group. Image: Getty/Dimas Ardian.

As a young man, he refused to let the event define him. Moving from his hometown of Newcastle to Sydney and then England helped with that. He was able to be just Joe, not "Joe who survived a terrorist attack".

But as the 20-year anniversary approached in 2025, Frost — who now lives back in Newcastle with his wife and two small kids — something started to niggle.

A journalist by trade, he realised he had questions that had been plaguing him on and off for years.

Listen to Joe's full interview on True Crime Conversations. Post continues below.

"I wanted to know what drove the people who did it to end their lives in the way that they did," he said.

"It had always just been a bit of a hand wave of it's Jemaah Islamiyah; they're this terrorist network that exists throughout Indonesia. They did the 2002 Bali bombing, they've done other bombings, then they've done this bombing…and that's sort of all you need to know."

But he wanted to know about the individuals, and in particular, he wanted to know about the man who had decided to end his life next to Frost's table.

Joe speaking at the 2025 commemoration memorial service he organised in Newcastle. Image: Getty/Roni Bintang

"Just the simple fact that this person had a name, and then to sort of try to grapple with it," he said.

Ferdos had been in his 20s and was wearing a simple t-shirt and shorts, not too dissimilar to Frost at the time. He was a teacher from Java, and had been educated at a boarding school with strong links to Jemaah Islamiyah.

"I've got snippets [of the bombers' last will and testament], and they're all so resolute and have this logic that's been drummed into them," he said.

In the clips, Ferdos and the other bombers look like ordinary people. They show empathy, behave politely and don't have criminal records. Their training had involved reassurance and assurance that their upcoming mission was good and just and that their actions were the 'fulfilment of the divine', and would grant them and their loved one's access to eternal paradise.

Digging into the terrorists' stories and creating a podcast, Forgotten Bombs: Bali 2005 on everything he learnt, led Frost down a dark path.

"It's been hard at times. I'm so lucky to have my wife. When things were at their darkest, I wasn't worried about the light at the end of the tunnel because she was holding my hand," he said.

After initially moving away, Joe now lives back in Newcastle with his wife and young family. Image: Supplied.

For years, Frost has slept metres away from a box in his wardrobe carrying the remnants of his clothes from that night; remnants of the terrorist who died beside him.

"Knowing what I know now, and being able to sort of place a logic around it, even if that logic is completely illogical to me, it does help me to understand things better. It's been helpful for me," he said.

But he's still not ready to return to Bali.

"I would not take my kids there, and that's not fair to say because that's a me thing, not a Bali thing.

"I would just sort of feel within myself completely unsafe, and if I feel unsafe, I don't want my babies to be unsafe. I'm apologetic, because the Balinese were so amazing in the aftermath, they deserve so much better than someone saying 'I can't go back'. But thus far, I can't."

Feature image: Supplied.