Monday 08 November 2010
A survivor of the 7 July tube bombings tells the inquest into the deaths of the 52 victims how he was blown out of the train as a suicide bomber detonated his device.

Daniel Biddle, 31, was severely injured when ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan detonated his bomb, which killed six other people at Edgware Road, London.

The inquests into the deaths of the 52 victims of the 2005 bombings heard how Mr Biddle lost both his legs, his left eye, his spleen and 87 pints of blood in the blast.

He told the inquest that a 20p piece remains lodged in his thigh bone, and other shrapnel, including his door keys, had to be removed by surgeons.

Standing 'next to bomber'

Mr Biddle was travelling to work as a construction manager as he was blown out of the westbound Circle Line train. Speaking at the Royal Courts of Justice he described how Khan, who got on the train at King's Cross, sat between 6ft and 10ft away from him before detonating his bomb by jerking a white cord.

"It was when I tried to move and I couldn't, and as the dust and smoke settled and the noises started, that I realised something bad had happened." Edgware Road survivor Daniel Biddle

"There was a big white flash," Mr Biddle said.

"The kind of noise you get when you tune a radio in. It felt like the carriage I was in expanded at a fast rate and then contracted quickly.

"And with that it blew me off my feet and through the carriage doors into the tunnel."

He added: "Before he set the device off he looked up and along the carriage and just looked down.

"He didn't say anything or shout anything I remember hearing. He got his head down, moved his arm and the next thing I am outside the train."

Inspirational: the story of a 7 July survivor
The story of how Daniel Biddle survived the 7 July bombings was described by the coroner today as "inspirational". It is, without question, one of the most remarkable accounts to have emerged from the inquests so far, writes Home Affairs Correspondent Andy Davies.

This was a man who was standing just feet away from Mohammed Siddique Khan when he detonated his bomb. He landed on the tracks, in the darkness, trapped under the train, being urged by the two men (Adrian Heili and Lee Hunt) who had come to help him to prepare for pain as they tried to dress his wounds.

"When Adrian said it was going to hurt", he said in evidence today, "I just gripped Lee's hand, but I didn't feel anything". He would emerge from intensive medical treatment months later having lost both legs, his spleen, and his sight in one eye.

The force of the blast had even left him with a 20p piece permanently lodged in his thigh bone (the surgeons had already removed £7.40 in coins from his body as well as his door keys).

"Given the large number of factors that combined to put you on that train", said Lady Justice Hallett addressing Mr Biddle at the end of his evidence, "I pray they don't haunt you".

Daniel Biddle then sat at the back of the court to hear from the man widely credited with saving his life, Adrian Heili. This was the fellow passenger who crawled beneath the carriage to apply critical makeshift tourniquets to Mr Biddle's legs and to guide him through the unimaginable horror of those early hours.

At the end of his evidence, the former Austrian soldier walked to the back of the court and gently placed a hand on Mr Biddle's back. It was a brief gesture, but it said everything.

Woke up on the tracks

Mr Biddle said that Khan just looked like an ordinary person. "There was nothing about him that made me think he was a danger in any way or anything like that," he said.

Mr Biddle said his first thought was that he had "fallen out of the train" when he woke up on the tracks, covered in debris.

He said: "I had quite a lot of metal on top of me. It was very dark and dusty.

"It was when I tried to move and I couldn't, and as the dust and smoke settled and the noises started, that I realised something bad had happened."

Mr Biddle described how he hit his head against a light on the wall of the tunnel, knocking him out. When he came to, the train was still moving, and he found a piece of door or train panel holding him down by his legs and his arm was on fire.

He said: "There was a blueish flame on my arms and hands. It went out on its own, like a flash flame."

'Terrified'

Mr Biddle said one of his arms started swelling and he threw his watch away before realising there was something wedged uncomfortably behind him.

"I repositioned my shoulders and reached behind me and pulled out a leg and foot," he said.

The inquest heard that Mr Biddle could see several bodies, including one just 2ft away.

He said: "I was terrified, seeing what I had seen, and thought I was going to die. So I was screaming just as loud as I could to get help."

Mr Biddle was helped by Lee Hunt, an off-duty tube driver, and paramedic Graeme Baker, who accompanied him to St Mary's Hospital in Paddington.

The inquest heard that Mr Biddle suffered appalling injuries, spent several weeks in a coma and doctors gave him dozens of pints of blood in transfusions. His heart was massaged by hand as medical staff fought to save his life.

Fateful decisions

Earlier, Mr Biddle described how he only caught the tube train because of a series of fateful decisions.

He was running late, after waking with a migraine, and let the first train to arrive at Liverpool Street pass because it was so crowded.

Mr Biddle said he then missed his stop at Baker Street because he was engrossed in sending a text message.

He said: "People were getting on and off. I didn't really pay particular attention to anybody.

"I saw a young Asian guy get on at King's Cross and sort of walk along the carriage and sit down, but I didn't really think anything of it."