Posted on 07/17/2005 5:45:04 AM PDT by Lori675
A victim has told the Princess Royal how she survived two bomb attacks in London in less than an hour. Louise Barry, 29, was evacuated from an Underground train hit by an explosion at Edgware Road station. She then boarded the bus that was blown apart in Tavistock Square.
When Princess Anne was visiting victims of the terror attacks in University College hospital last week, she suggested that Barry might not remember much. Barry replied: “Unfortunately, I remember all of it.”
The marketing executive, who was born in Sydney but now works in London, suffered a fractured neck, a puncture wound in her left thigh from shrapnel and a burn on her arm. She also had nine stitches in a head wound.
She was sitting downstairs in the back of the bus when the bomb went off.
“I was quite calm and relaxed, reading the paper, and the next thing everything went green and there was a sort of ‘woaow’ sound,” she said.
“There was a very extreme, heavy weight and pain on my head and my back. And then boiling water — which I thought was petrol — was pouring on my arm and, luckily, I was wearing my flatmate’s leather jacket.
“The whole double-decker base caved in and fell on top of me from all angles and I couldn’t actually get out. I was a bit stuck and a bit s*** scared.”
She added: “It was quite surreal. I heard voices and people saying, ‘Everything’s going to be okay’. Something just kicked in, some sort of survival instinct. I feel really bad, because I think there were other people trapped. I hope they’re okay.”
She crawled through the wreckage until she was pulled clear by staff from the nearby offices of the British Medical Association.
Barry was one of 10 Australian victims of the bomb attacks. Another, Sam Ly, 28, an IT consultant from Melbourne, died on Friday from the injuries he received in the bus blast.
Of the 55 confirmed dead, 41 have been identified. Of these 32 have been named. At least another 15 are still posted as missing. Families have paid tribute to loved ones who have been officially confirmed as dead.
The wife, son and daughter of Giles Hart, 55, a BT engineer from Hornchurch, Essex, who was killed in the bus blast, released a statement saying he had tried to make the world a “fairer, greener place to live in”. They added: “Giles was always a champion of liberty and human rights and a campaigner against political injustice and bigotry. It is tragic that he fell victim to the very evil against which he had struggled.”
The family of Stan Brewster, 52, a father of two and a highways engineer from Swanwick, Derbyshire, said he had suffered a “needless and inhuman” death.
The boyfriend, parents and brothers of Laura Webb, 29, from Islington, north London, who died in the bombing at Edgware Road Underground station, released a statement saying she had been an “example of how to live life”.
“She was kind, loving and beautiful and all of us are better people for having had her in our lives,” it read.
“It is hard to believe that she is gone and her loss is even more tragic because of the appalling incident that led not only to her death, but the deaths of over 50 other people.”
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I read about a woman named Violet Jessop, who survived the Titanic. In addition, she survived the sinking of the Britannic, near Greece. She also survived a collision between Olympic and another ship, the Hawke, in 1911.
I had seen another story that someone being evacuated from the station had only reached the top of the stairs when she witnessed the bus explode, and yet...
“I was quite calm and relaxed, reading the paper, and the next thing everything went green and there was a sort of ‘woaow’ sound,” she said.
Calm and relaxed after being pulled off a bombed train? Well, at that point I guess they were trying to peddle the idea that it was an electrical system explosion, not a suicide bomber.
> Louise Barry is one of those astonishing people who seem like they're guided through a tragedy by a guardian angel.
Yeah, but I won't be getting in the same airplane with her...
I would have avoided boarding any ship that she boarded!
Of course when they looked at the list of folks on the plane that that destroyed his office while he wasn't there ... sure enough, he was on it.
They added: “Giles was always a champion of liberty and human rights and a campaigner against political injustice and bigotry. It is tragic that he fell victim to the very evil against which he had struggled.”
Implied by the wife her husband/victim was an Islamo-supporter?
Yeah, but I won't be getting in the same airplane with her...
Yeah, you gotta wonder if she's the luckiest or the UN-luckiest person on earth.
I feel the same way about my brother, who had 3 motorcycles totaled out from under him by inattentive drivers. The lucky part? Still in reasonably good health, and three years in a row he had a brand new motorcycle, bought by the drivers' insurance companies. The unlucky part? 3 months in a cast and a bad knee. He doesn't ride any more, BTW.
Dang. I wouldn't let her on board my ship if I were the captain.
Similarly, if Ms Barry was evacuated from one exploded train and got onto a bus that also later exploded, why do we assume that she was the only one from that train who took the same bus?
In other words, there might be other untold stories that did not end so fortunately.
If this is the woman I'm thinking of, the White Star lines refused to give her passage after this series of mishaps.
Some guardian angels were working overtime on the 7th.
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