Huntingdon train stabbing: ‘I thought it was a Halloween prank – then people covered in blood appeared’
Eyewitnesses have described the horror after 11 people were injured in a mass stabbing on a London-bound train.
Dozens of passengers were forced to barricade carriages and try to protect themselves from brutal stabbings on the LNER service from Doncaster to London at 6.25pm on Saturday.
The train made an unscheduled stop in Huntingdon, where about 30 police officers boarded the train and arrested two men. Ten people were taken to hospital, where the life of a “hero” LNER staff member remains in danger, according to British Transport Police. A 32-year-old man is being held on suspicion of attempted murder and is currently being treated as the sole suspect.
collapse in the train car
When Alistair Day missed his return connection to Hertford after a day of football, he hopped on the 6.25pm service from Doncaster to King’s Cross.
Shortly after boarding, he visited the buffet car and then saw people running towards him, which he initially thought was a “prank”. He later realized they were covered in blood and desperately looking for somewhere to hide after a man allegedly armed with a knife launched the attack.
Mr Day, 58, he told the BBC He was one of dozens of bystanders who had to barricade themselves inside the carriage in the eight minutes between the initial 999 call and the arrests.
“I thought it was like Halloween or a prank for the students,” he said. “Then they get louder and louder.”
He said when he saw people with blood on them, he realized “this is not good.”
He joined a group heading to the buffet car where people were “trying to close the blinds”, but he told them “no, you need to let us in”.
He said he later saw “a man with a knife at the window” trying to get in, but at that time the buffet car was already locked. He also remembers a man wearing a Nottingham Forest tracksuit saying: “I’ll go and face him.”
He later said he saw the man covered in blood on the train platform.
‘There was blood everywhere’
Joe, 24, told the BBC he saw people running in the train carriage on his way back from football.
“You have to run, you have to run,” it was said.
“At first it wasn’t recording what was actually going on,” he continued. “Then I quickly dropped my things and started running with them.”
He added: “You looked around and there was blood everywhere.”
‘I leaned on the chair, my hand came out covered in blood’
Olly Foster, a passenger on the train, said he initially believed he had witnessed a Halloween prank after hearing other passengers hear stabbings.
But when people started passing through the carriage, he realized something serious had happened. He told the BBC that he leaned on a chair that he didn’t realize was soaked with blood and returned with the chair covered in blood.
He took shelter at the end of a carriage and talked to the other passengers about anything they could use against the attacker. There was only a bottle of whiskey between them and they were “staring at the car” and “praying” that he wouldn’t get in.
Mr Foster said the 10- to 15-minute encounter “felt like it lasted forever”.
When he got off the train, he saw the full extent of the brutality: “There were three people bleeding heavily.
“A man was holding his stomach and blood was coming from his stomach and going down to his leg. He was saying ‘Help, help, I’ve been stabbed’.”
Cassie Marriot tried to help people off the train, including a teenage girl who appeared “petrified” after narrowly missing being attacked.
He told the BBC: “I met another young girl, aged 18 or 19. She told me she was listening to music on the train and a man tried to stab her. “She said someone pushed her out of the way.
“He looked absolutely petrified.”
