A mum who was killed while defending her nine-month-old baby during a horrific knife attack in Sydney, Australia has been identified.

Ash Good, 38, known as the “world’s best mum” by her close friends, had heroically shielded her nine-month-old baby during the terrible incident.

Reports stormed in on Saturday of an armed man assaulting innocent shoppers at Westfield Shopping Centre at Bondi Junction in Sydney. The quick decision-making and sheer bravery of a local police inspector led to the fatal shooting of the assailant.

Authorities suspect the assailant to be a known 40-year-old local male.

Mum Ash Good’s, 38, sacrifice ultimately allowed her child to live, albeit with severe knife injuries. The baby is now engaged in a tense struggle for survival at Sydney Children’s Hospital.

The 40-year-old was stopped in the knifing attack at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction, which is in the city’s eastern suburbs when a police inspector shot him after he turned and raised a knife, New South Wales Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke told reporters.

Six people were stabbed to death at the busy Sydney shopping center Saturday before he was fatally shot, police said, with hundreds fleeing the chaotic scene, many weeping as they carried their children. Eight people, including the 9-month-old, were injured.

“They just said run, run, run – someone’s been stabbed,” one witness told ABC TV in Australia. ”(The attacker) was walking really calmly like he was having an ice cream in a park. And then he went up the escalators… and probably within about a minute we heard three gunshots.”

Six of the victims – five women and a man – and the suspect died. Commissioner Karen Webb said the eight injured people were being treated at hospitals. The baby was in surgery, but it was too early to know the condition, she said.

“We are confident that there is no ongoing risk, and we are dealing with one person who is now deceased,” Webb said in a later briefing. She added: “It’s not a terrorism incident.”

She said police wouldn’t identify the man yet and were still working to determine his motivation.