guzman
Minor Poster
Joined: 28 Feb 2007
Posts: 53
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 Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 11:53 pm Post subject: Secondary device at Tavistock Square? |
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Eyewitness accounts of a secondary device and controlled explosion at Tavistock Square.
Richmal Marie Oates-Whitehead
| Quote: | Ms Oates-Whitehead gained national prominence in her native country thanks to media coverage of the suicide bombing which destroyed the number 30 bus in Tavistock Square, outside the headquarters of the BMA. She was employed there as editor of Clinical Evidence, an online edition of the British Medical Journal. After the blast she appears to have left the building, alongside medically trained staff bringing first aid assistance to survivors.
Precisely what her role was that morning remains uncertain. The 35-year-old always carried a stethoscope in her handbag. She later told the Weekend Herald, a New Zealand paper, that she had been helping the injured in a makeshift hospital set up in a hotel next door to the BMA when two firefighters approached her for help.
"They needed one doctor to assist as firemen cut two badly injured people out of the wreckage. Would she come? They would understand if she declined," the front page article said. It reported Ms Oates-Whitehead as saying: "There was no room for hesitation - I wasn't thinking at that level. It was the moral and ethical thing to do." Her account included a controlled detonation of a second bomb. "Outside, there was another enormous bang as police detonated the 'bomb' - which turned out to be a false alarm."
The problem was twofold. Police had no record of a controlled explosion in Tavistock Square; moreover she was not a doctor. Her name does not appear on either the UK or New Zealand medical council registers.
Source |
Graham Morley
| Quote: | One street away, Graham Morley was standing outside, Theobald's, a butchers he runs on Theobald's Road opposite Holborn police station which responded first to the explosions at Russell Square.
"It's hard to put it into words really, it's hard to think who would have done this. I thought all of these things were over, you know?"
Mr Morley first heard about the explosions on Taverstock Square when two police bomb disposal teams pulled up outside his shop and ambulances started pouring up Lambs Conduit Street. He had just sent out his deliveries for the morning.
"Before I knew it they started to cordon this all off," he said. "They told us to evacuate but we had an 82-year-old woman in here. She said 'I've seen it all, I'm not going anywhere.' So we stayed with her."
"It's chaos really," he said.
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PC Ashley Walker and Sergeant Graham Cross
| Quote: | Sgt. Graham Cross, who had been a police officer for 12 years and had served as a soldier in the first Gulf War, joined PC Walker at Tavistock Square moments after the bomb had exploded.
He said: “It seems that we were in the wrong place at the right time. I was worried there would be another bomber on the bus but we just had to get there and help people off. Any Police Officer would have done the same in those harrowing circumstances.”
Source
Sergeant Graham Cross, 41, and his team had been called to the area following the earlier explosion at Kings Cross and were trying to set up a cordon when the bus was ripped apart.
"We were only 100 metres away," Sergeant Cross said.
"When we heard the explosion we ran towards the bus and went from there.
"We thought there was another suicide bomber or another bomb on the bus because there was a another package and we did not know what it was or who it belonged to.
"We had no choice but to keep going and help the people off the bus."
PC Ashley Walker, 26, was actually looking at the bus when it blew apart in front of him.
He said that up until then they had been uncertain what was happening on the underground.
"But when we saw the bus bomb go off we realised it was a terrorist attack," he said.
PC Walker described a "horrific scene" as he and the other officers tried to rescue the injured trapped amid the debris.
All the time they were conscious of a microwave box which had been left beside a window and was causing people to fear a secondary explosion.
Eventually a bomb disposal unit were called and they destroyed the package.
Source
Mr Cross, and constables Chris Mitchell, 36, Peter McDonagh, 43, Ashley Walker, 26, Chris Barkhouse, 40, and Raj Thamoderam, 39, were diverting traffic from Euston Road after the Tube blasts when the bus exploded.
Mr Cross said: "We knew there could be another device or even another suicide bomber. We were possibly going to die, there was that real fear.
There were abandoned bags and packages everywhere and people were fleeing in panic, covered in blood.
Source
Microwave bomb?
Sergeant Graham Cross and his unit of five were trying to set up a cordon around the King's Cross bombing when the number 30 bus was blown up in Tavistock Square.
"We were only 100 metres away," Mr Cross said.
Team member PC Ashley Walker was looking at the bus as it exploded before his eyes.
As they ran closer, they saw "people's body parts and lumps of flesh", PC Walker remembers. One man's legs were trapped under a bench, while another mangled victim hanged with his head over the edge of the bombed top deck.
Then they spotted a microwave box near a window. Another bomb?
They thought it was.
"But we had no choice, really," Mr Graham says. "We had to go get people off the bus."
A bomb disposal unit later blew up the package in a controlled explosion.
Source
At the scene of Tavistock Square bomb
First on scene: The Albany Street Sector Team.
OFFICERS FROM the Albany Street Sector Team in Camden borough were first on the scene after the number 30 bus exploded in Tavistock Square.
Officers were able to evacuate nearly all but the most seriously injured of the survivors.
Before the explosion, they were on a cordon at Euston Road diverting traffic – including the bus – down Upper Woburn Place towards Tavistock Square.
Thud
Sgt Graham Cross said: “The blast was like a big thud. We ran down towards it – we were about a minute away.
“We thought there was another bomb on the bus. It did not change anything we did.
“We had to go in to help people.”
Source
Sgt Graham Cross of Camden police was leading his sector team from Albany Street directing traffic away from King's Cross station on July 7 when he heard the number 30 bus explode behind them.
The 41-year-old father of two led his team straight to the scene of the bomb, despite the risk of a secondary explosion.
He said: "We turned behind us and the first thing we saw was the smoke, when that cleared we saw the bus.
"At first we thought it was a tourist bus or something. There was a lot of destruction. There were people running all over the place, you just don't expect to see anything like that.
"Our concern was that there could be another suicide bomber on the bus, but it didn't really change anything. We had no choice. We just had to get the people off."
Sgt Cross and his five man team, PCs Peter McDonagh, Chris Mitchell, Raj Thamoderam, Christopher Barkhouse and Ashley Walker were all awarded with the highest police commendations on Wednesday.
And Sgt Cross who served in the Gulf War and has been a police officer for 12 years, also attended a thank you reception at Buckingham Palace that evening.
PC Walker, 26, described how he had to board the bus and became suspicious about a microwave box that was on the lower deck.
He said: "I saw the microwave box on the left-hand side of the and it just seemed strange that it was there.
"At that point we just weren't going to take any chance."
But the officers had to get as many people off the bus as they could, despite their fears of another explosion.
PC Walker said: "You have to get them out and you are rushing, trying to make sure you can help as many as possible. We called the bomb disposal team and just carried off as many as we could."
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Ff Toby Keep, Holloway Blue Watch
| Quote: | “When we got there, there were empty buses lining the streets and the place was heaving with people. The Stn O assessed if there were any saveable lives; we got the cutting equipment off the appliance and walked forward with the Stn O. We were passing casualties on the way to the bus, some with terrible injuries. It seemed unreal, and it was a very sobering moment. We didn’t need the cutting equipment. But we did help get one casualty off the bus. The police were warning of the possibility of secondary devices, so we did everything as quickly as possible to get out of the way.
“Next to the bus was a casualty, drifting in and out of consciousness. Ten of us took a tabletop from the BMA building and carried him through to the courtyard. We also took the first aid kits and oxygen off the trucks and assisted the BMA doctors. Then the police said they needed to carry out a controlled explosion, so we helped to move all the casualties further into the courtyard
Source (PDF) |
GP Andrew Dearden
| Quote: | During this time, though I cannot remember exactly how, we were told that the explosion was probably a bomb and that there maybe another bomb in the vicinity. I remember seeing police with dogs walking around, which I assumed were sniffer dogs. What I was aware of later, was that no one seemed to worry about any danger to those around the bus, just concentrated on the needs of those already injured. That said, we also knew the need to get those people off the road and into the BMA courtyard as soon as possible.
Source |
BMA Council Chairman, James Johnson
| Quote: | I won't go into the details of what happened that morning, other than to say that when police warned of a potential second explosion we moved the injured people into the courtyard, using table tops and doors as make-do stretchers. The Hastings Room and other ground floor areas were brought into play.
Source |
Dr. Mohib Khan
| Quote: | There were concerns about another explosion and victims were moved on makeshift stretchers from pavements to the association's courtyard, which became a casualty station as desperately needed supplies including oxygen and fluids eventually arrived.
Source
He said police announced there was another bomb on the bus while patients were being treated.
Patients then had to be carefully moved back to allow a controlled explosion to be carried out.
He said: "I thought if a second bomb went off, I would be finished. But I didn't care about that. I just thought I am a trained doctor and they need my help."
Source |
GP Sam Everington
| Quote: | "That was no time to have the wobbles and so with people pouring out of the BMA building, I shouted: 'Doctors this way!' and started allocating doctors to victims. It was random, based on who was moving, and me shouting 'Go to them!' A policeman came up and said they were worried about a secondary explosive device and that we needed to move the survivors, so I told the security guards who started frantically ripping doors off hinges and we used everything we could to transfer the worst injured into the BMA courtyard. My problem was that there were only four doctors and twice as many casualties.
Source |
GP Peter Holden
| Quote: | Peter Holden, a fellow of the British Association for Immediate Care (Basics), trained to deal with casualties in major incidents, was in the same meeting. "I knew it was an explosive device," he says. "I also knew from my training that you must always assume that there is a secondary device. You should not rush out, but hold back until it is safe."
For this reason, the GPs stayed put. But on the ground floor, Khan and six of his colleagues - three of whom were surgeons and a fourth a trauma specialist - were out on the pavement immediately responding to calls for help. They were rapidly joined by Everington, who says: "My instinct was to help. I had been in Whitehall at the time of the IRA mortar attack on Downing Street. I knew it was a bomb and I knew it was close."
Source |
Dr. Tim Harris
| Quote: | Dr Tim Harris, a senior member of London Helicopter Emergency Medical Services, was sitting on the helipad of the Royal London hospital when the news began to filter through:
We heard from one of the doctors that there had been a power surge on the tube and a query fire at King's Cross. A few minutes later we heard that a major incident had been declared. We changed into our orange jumpsuits and began to divide ourselves into teams. We note who is going to to which scene in case there is a secondary explosion and we have to inform their relatives.
We were on our way to Euston but were diverted to Tavistock Square. We went in our fast-response vehicle and we found that traffic was gridlocked. The helicopter was already ferrying teams to King's Cross.
We drove up behind the bus and it was cordoned off. The police told us that we couldn't go on the bus - there was going to be a secondary controlled explosion - and that casualties had been evacuated into BMA House. Doctors who were attending a conference there were already working on the patients.
Source |
Paul Tripea
| Quote: | Paul Tripea, owner of the Russell Square Cafe, said people had rushed inside following an explosion.
"One of the security guards from a nearby hotel rushed in and said he saw the bus explode around Tavistock Square," said Mr Tripea.
"We have also heard that there is a suspect package in Russell Square.
Source |
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