“Brave” Australian girl emerges after necklace bomb horror

The ordeal that faced young Madeleine Pulver had all of Australia horrified.

The 18-year-old girl was studying for high school exams when an intruder broke into her home in the wealthy Sydney suburb of Mosman and put a collar device around her neck, telling her it was a bomb.

Police worked through the night on Wednesday to try and detonate what turned out to be a hoax bomb – but not before the girl, her family and friends were traumatized.

Police have not arrested anyone over the incident and it is still unclear as to any motive.

Yesterday Pulver emerged from her home with her mother, Belinda, smiling and saying she was OK while the officer who was first on the scene and is credited with keeping her calm praised her as "the strongest girl in the world".

"I'm okay, thank you," the 18-year-old said as she climbed into the family's BMW with her three brothers, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Before the balaclava-clad man fled the house about 2.30pm on Wednesday he pinned a note to Pulver's chest signed "Dirk Struan,"the central character in James Clavell's novel Tai-Pan, The Australian reports.

The intruder appears to identify himself with the protagonist from Clavell's 1966 novel, which is set following the British seizure of Hong Kong in 1842 and is the second novel, after Shogun, in the author's Asian saga series, it reports.

The note apparently made no demands for money.

Bomb disposal unit officers spent 10 hours testing the device for explosive substances as she sat immobile and terrified.

Neighbors and friends came over with groceries and flowers were delivered – though police first checked the bunches before they were taken inside the home, it reports.

A young friend said her peers were overwhelmed by what had happened. "Everyone's pretty traumatized and feels really bad that she had to go through something like that," she said. "But I think she's a strong girl and I think she'll make it through.

"She's so down to earth and so beautiful and most undeserving [of such treatment]."

Yesterday it emerged that the driver of her neighbor, horse racing identity Gai Waterhouse, saw a man in a nearby street get into a car driven by a woman while  Pulver sat terrified in her home.

Channel Ten reported that the hoax bomb had been made from material used in a gun safe.

The Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, said: "This is the sort of crime we haven't seen in Australia before and, for that reason, it's important we keep a close watch on it."

"We're going to let the investigators get on with their job, do what has to be done. They will tie down every lead."

The police officer who sat alone with Pulver for two hours before bomb experts entered the three-storey house on Wednesday, said the young woman was "the strongest girl in the world".

Constable Karen Lowden said: "She did everything right. She was just an amazing person."

"There's a lot of things that we did talk about besides, [the] part of the conversation that I can't [talk] about in great depth. We also talked about her trial HSC," she said. "Just anything to keep her reassured … her art studies, just anything to make her feel as comfortable as she could.

"She was very brave … I just know that she's a strong, very level-headed girl."

A man wearing a balaclava had attached the collar device to her and left a long, typed instructions, including that if she called police he would detonate it.