The Hindu : International : Doctors were out on the pavement immediately responding to calls for help

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 14, 2005

International

International

Doctors were out on the pavement immediately responding to calls for help

Alison Benjamin and Debbie Andalo— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

When a terrorist bomb exploded on a bus in central London last week, a group of 24 experienced doctors were, by a quirk of fate, already at the scene.

Alison Benjamin and

Debbie Andalo

LONDON: It was a normal morning at the headquarters of the British Medical Association (BMA). The imposing neo-classical building on Tavistock Square, in central London, was hosting meetings for general practitioners (GPs) and other medical practitioners from across the U.K. Many had arrived in the capital the night before and stayed in the plethora of hotels within walking distance of the venue.

Mary Church, from Glasgow, was attending a meeting of the BMA's GPs negotiating team on the third floor. Mohib Khan, a Huddersfield-based surgeon specialising in urology, was chairing a meeting of the BMA's staff and associate specialist committee. Sam Everington, a GP based in the East End of London and deputy chair of the association, had gone to the office to discuss with the chief executive the future role of the BMA as a policy think-tank.

As the meetings got under way, a number 30 bus on diversion was crawling along Upper Woburn Place. Full of commuters turned away from tube stations that were closed following three explosions underground, the bus passed slowly in front of the BMA building at 9.47a.m.

``There was a big bang,'' recalls Mr. Khan, who was on the ground floor. ``I had never heard anything like it. It was a very deep, deafening sound. It shook the whole building.''

The shock of the blast made Ms. Church burst into tears. ``I felt a bit stupid, but I got such a fright,'' she says.

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, Mr. 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 Mr. 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.''

Body parts were strewn across the road, torsos ripped open, and survivors covered in blood, with limbs blown off. ``Some had managed to get off the bus [the roof of which had been ripped off in the blast] and were on the pavement,'' Mr. Everington says. ``I think one person at least was still on the bus.''

First aid boxes

With no ambulances in sight, Mr. Everington asked a security guard to go back into the blood-splattered building and get as many first aid boxes as he could find, some blankets and tablecloths that could be used as sheets. ``One of the casualties had part of his leg blown off and a colleague had to use a bandage from one of the first aid kits as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding,'' Mr. Everington says. ``You just did what you could.''

Andrew Dearden, a GP from Cardiff, had run to the scene after hearing the explosion from a flat where he had been staying along the road from the BMA. Despite it being 10 years since he last worked in a casualty department, Mr. Dearden helped one of the doctors who was treating a man with arm and leg injuries. ``You never forget that basic life support training,'' Mr. Dearden says. ``You just switch into it.''

The doctors were then told of the possibility of another bomb and to get everyone away from what remained of the bus. ``We had to get anything we could — table tops, pieces of wood — to move the patients back towards the courtyard of BMA House,'' Mr. Everington explains.

When Mr. Holden arrived in the courtyard — some 10 minutes after the bus had exploded — it had been transformed into a field hospital, with nine casualties laying on makeshift stretchers wrapped in table cloths.

By now there were up to 24 doctors working in pairs to resuscitate patients, prevent further bleeding, and put drips in their arms.

``It was like a battleground,'' says Mr. Khan, who treated a young woman having difficulty breathing because of neck and lung injuries, and a young man with serious chest injuries.

Ms. Church, having recovered from her initial terror, was monitoring the heart rate of another badly injured woman.

``Your professional training just kicks in,'' she says. As the first ambulances arrived, Mr. Holden — whose reputation as a Basics expert was well known — took charge of liaison with the emergency services to get the injured to hospital as quickly as possible. ``What we needed was oxygen and fluids, and the ambulance service provided them,'' he says. ``They realised that if they gave us the kit we could run the show to allow them to set up the medical transport.

War surgery

``This is war surgery — you knock the dust off and stick the canular in; there isn't time for surgical sterility.''

Mr. Holden turned the large Hastings meeting room on the ground floor into a control centre, complete with a whiteboard on which he set about listing the casualties and prioritising them. Those with the most severe injuries were given a number one status.

Laurence Buckman, deputy chair of the BMA's GPs committee, was told by ambulance staff that 10 persons had died in the blast.

Only one died in the BMA courtyard, at whose centre is a bronze fountain surrounded by four statues — representing sacrifice, cure, prevention and aspiration — that form a memorial to the medical men and women who were killed in the second world war.

The remainder were ferried to University College hospital by a team of ambulances that had been organised into a taxi rank at the back of the building. A dozen or so walking wounded were then treated for minor cuts, lacerations and bumps in the Hastings room.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

International

News Update

Stories in this Section

North Korea to study Seoul's energy offer

London: families search for the missing relatives

Doctors were out on the pavement immediately responding to calls for help

Three national waterways proposed, says Baalu

Huge anti-Arroyo protest in Manila

We will deport radical Imams, says Blair

China supports India's U.N. bid