‘Heroic’ actions of train employee and driver saved many lives in England stabbing attack, police say
It was just 11 minutes before British police received an emergency call. get stabbed on the train It’s heading towards London and that’s when the suspect is arrested.
According to officials, 11 victims of the attack were hospitalized, including a railroad worker who was in critical but stable condition.
Officials said casualties would have been much worse had it not been for the actions of the engineer who diverted the train to a nearby station and a “heroic” railroad worker who tried to stop the attacker on the train.
A high-speed London North Eastern Railway (LNER) train carrying passengers from northern England to the British capital on Saturday evening had just left Peterborough station in Cambridgeshire when the attack took place. The first emergency call to Cambridgeshire police was made at around 19:39 local time. Police officers arrested the 32-year-old British suspect, who was on the platform at Huntingdon station at 19:50, police told CNN.
The identity of the seriously injured train worker has not yet been made public.
British Transport Police (BTP) said “detectives examined the train’s security cameras and it was clear that his actions were heroic and undoubtedly saved many lives.”
British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told the BBC on Monday: “The courage he showed was extremely remarkable… He put himself in danger.” “There are people alive today who wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for his actions.”
BTP said in a statement on Sunday that five more injured people were discharged from hospital.
Alexander also paid tribute to the emergency services and in particular to the train driver who “had the courage to phone the signals at Network Rail and take the train on that slow line to Huntingdon station and to safety.”
The high-speed train was planned to pass quickly through the station, but the driver and signalmen quickly arranged for the train to divert to a slow track so that it could stop on the platform.
The route was changed at 19.40 local time, just a minute after police received the first call about the attack. Another local train was already on the platform at Huntingdon; The signalmen were able to safely guide the LNER train to the platform where it stopped at 19:44.
Huntington station is located in the immediate vicinity of Cambridgeshire Constabulary and both response officers and armed officers quickly arrived at the scene.
Armed police officers were seen running across the platform at the station evacuating passengers, trying to neutralize any ongoing threat, Britain’s PA Media news agency reported.
Train driver Andrew Johnson told ITV News: “I was just doing my job. It was my colleague in hospital who was brave.” Johnson, from Peterborough, was reported in the British media to have served in the Royal Navy for 17 years.
Train driver Andrew Johnson, who volunteered here for the Royal British Legion’s annual appeal to support veterans, was praised for his swift action. -From Andrew Johnson/Facebook
Johnson was praised for remaining calm as the attack took place and for avoiding an emergency stop along the railway line, where it would have been more difficult for authorities to respond to the incident; The next opportunity to stop would be at a station seven minutes further down the line.
Train drivers in the UK have extensive route training and are required to know the location of every signal and track layout on their route, including in the dark. Signals have similar detailed information.
Nigel Roebuck, an organizer with train drivers’ union ASLEF and chief officer of the LNER, told British media: “The driver did everything he was trained to do, at the right time and in the right way.”
“He showed real courage, real dedication and real determination in the most difficult circumstances,” Roebuck added. “Our thoughts tonight are with his colleague who is still in intensive care,” he said.
Suspect accused of multiple attempted murders
Police are trying to determine the motive for the attack but said there was no evidence it was terrorism-related.
The man arrested, Anthony Williams, 32, of Peterborough, was charged with 10 counts of attempted murder, one count of causing actual bodily harm and one count of possession of a bladed instrument. He was also charged with a separate count of attempted murder in connection with an incident at a London station in the early hours of Saturday. Williams was taken into custody after appearing in court on Monday.
According to the UK’s PA Media, he was not asked to defend himself in court and when asked for his address he said he had “no fixed abode”. His next hearing will be held on December 1.
A second man was initially arrested at the scene but was later released without charge.
Meanwhile, three more incidents believed to be linked to the attacker took place in Peterborough on Friday evening and Saturday morning, according to Cambridgeshire police. One of these was a stabbing in Peterborough city center that saw a 14-year-old boy taken to hospital with minor injuries.
Following a mass stabbing on a London-bound train, belongings of escaped passengers are seen on the ground at the entrance of Huntingdon railway station on November 2. -Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Eyewitnesses described escaping the attack
Passenger Wren Chambers told the BBC he initially “heard some screams and shouts” from one or two carriages before a man ran down the train with a “very open wound” bleeding heavily from his arm.
At first he thought it was a Halloween prank, but it turned out to be a real attack after the man shouted that someone had a knife and more people ran down the train.
Other witnesses said people fled the carriages for safety, and some tried to barricade themselves in the train toilets. Other passengers managed to hide in the train’s buffet car.
Another eyewitness, Thomas McLachlan, told the BBC: “There were definitely a lot of heroes that day, a lot of kind people wanting to help those around them – people handing out blankets, hand warmers.”
McLachlan said he saw an injured man with cuts on his face. He and another witness told local media they heard the man was “trying to protect a young girl from being attacked” when he was stabbed.
In a statement from the football club, it was stated that one of the victims, who is still in hospital, is Scunthorpe United player Jonathan Gjoshe and suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Little information has been released about the other victims at this stage, including their ages.
LNER chief executive David Horne said in a statement that he wanted to commend “the driver, crew and our operational response colleagues for their bravery and swift action”.
CNN’s Sophie Tanno and Catherine Nicholls contributed to this report.
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