Andrew Johnson/Facebook
Andrew Johnson, a LNER train driver, pictured at a Royal British Legion stall
Train staff and passengers have been praised for their heroic actions during a mass stabbing on a train which left multiple people injured.
A train crew member, who is in a critical but stable condition in hospital, has been hailed a “hero” whose actions saved lives, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said.
“On Saturday, he went to work to do his job – today, he is a hero, and forever will be,” she told Parliament earlier.
Police met the Doncaster-London King’s Cross train as it made an unscheduled stop at Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, shortly before 20:00 GMT on Saturday.
Anthony Williams, 32, gave his address as “no fixed abode” when appearing in court on Monday, where he was charged with 10 counts of attempted murder and remanded into custody.
Crew members saved lives
Mahmood paid tribute to the “breathtaking bravery” of those “on the train” including the “heroic acts of the passengers and train crew who intercepted the attacker”.
She told Parliament that one member of the crew onboard “ran towards danger” and confronted the man wielding a knife.
His actions stopped the attacker from advancing through the train, she said.
“He put himself in harm’s way, suffered grievous injuries as a result, and remains in hospital today, in a critical but stable condition,” she added.
Parliament TV
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood says her “thoughts are with the victims, their friends and family and all those who experienced the terrifying attack”
MPs have also praised the quick reaction of train driver Andrew Johnson, a former Royal Navy officer.
Mr Johnson contacted the control room to get the train diverted from the fast track to the slow track when the alarm was raised.
It meant the train could stop in Huntingdon, which allowed emergency services to quickly access the scene.
Mr Johnson said: “As train drivers, we hold a lot of responsibility. We practise our emergency response and keep up to date with our knowledge of the route, so if needed, we know exactly where to stop and what to do.”
He continued: “The action I took is the same as any other driver.
“I think my colleagues onboard were the real heroes and I’d like to pay tribute to their bravery.”
David Horne, the managing director at LNER, said: “Andrew’s actions are testament to the expertise and skills he has built over his career, both on the railway and in the military.
“The intensive training undertaken by our drivers means they are always ready to respond in any situation.”
‘Do you want to die?’
Stephen Crean/BBC
Stephen Crean tried to block the attacker from getting into the buffet car, where people were hiding
Passenger Stephen Crean, a Nottingham Forest football fan, is also being hailed a hero after he confronted the train attacker, who slashed him on the head and the hand.
He saw fellow passengers running to the buffet car and wanted to make sure they could stay safely barricaded there.
Mr Crean told the BBC’s Lucy Manning the attacker shouted “Do you want to die?” at him.
“I confronted this guy, because I’ve got to make sure that the door’s locked. But then he pulled this thing out. It was an over-large blade.
“He’s gone for me and there was a tussle in the arms and that’s where my hand, the fingers are really bad, four cuts through them, sliced.
“And then he raised it and must have caught me when I was ducking and diving and caught me on the head.”
Crean said it was nice to hear that people are calling him a hero, but he thinks there were also other heroes at the scene.
“It’s lovely to hear. But I’d say there are other heroes like the police and the guys that got me off the train, and the ambulances and the hospital staff, they’re probably the real heroes.
“And the train guy that’s really badly injured. So, you know, it’s a big shout to call someone a hero, but it’s nice.”
Whiskey bottle
“Run there’s a guy stabbing everyone” – witnesses describe attack
Witnesses have described seeing fellow passengers attempt to protect each other, while others stemmed bleeding from wounds while they waited for help.
Olly Foster, a passenger on the train, told the BBC he initially heard people shouting “run, run, there’s a guy literally stabbing everyone”, and believed it might have been a Halloween related prank.
He said within minutes, people started pushing through the carriage, and he noticed his hand was “covered in blood” as there was “blood all over the chair” he had leaned on.
An older man “blocked” the attacker from stabbing a younger girl, leaving him with a gash on his head and neck, Mr Foster said.
Passengers around him used jackets to try to staunch the bleeding.
He added that the only thing people in his carriage could use against the attacker was a bottle of whiskey, leaving them “staring down the carriage” and “praying” that he would not enter the carriage.
Although it lasted 10-15 minutes in total, Mr Foster said the incident “felt like forever”.
Describing the scene when he got off the train, he said: “There were three people bleeding severely. One guy was holding his stomach and there’s blood coming from his stomach and going down his leg.
“He was going ‘help, help, I’ve been stabbed’.”
‘You need to run’
PA
The incident prompted a huge response by the emergency services
Joe, who was also travelling back from the Nottingham Forest v Manchester United match, said the scenes were “like something out of a movie”.
The 24-year-old, from Peckham in south-east London, said: “I was texting my friends about my plans for that night and then people came rushing through from the carriage, running through, saying, ‘You need to run, you need to run’.
“At first it didn’t really register what was going on.
“And then quickly, I just dropped my stuff and I started running along with them.
“And then I looked back, and I could see this guy – he was quite a tall, black male, and he had a bloodied knife.
“You just looked around and there was blood just everywhere.”
‘What if we run out of carriages?’
Joe continued: “We kept moving through the train. We could see him behind us coming through.
“The scariest thing was that I knew that because the stops at this stage of the journey are just Stevenage and King’s Cross there’s quite a lot of big distances between stops.
“So we had no idea how long we were going to be on the train for.
“The thing that was in my mind was we’re running through this train now but what if we run out of carriages to run through? What if we reach the end of the train? What happens there?
“It all happened very quickly. I was just in a fight or flight mode really.”
He ran right towards us… we decided to hide in a taxi’, says eyewitness
‘Panic’
Steve was on the King’s Cross-bound train with his two children. The family were at the opposite end of the train to where the attack unfolded, but reflected on a “nightmare scenario”.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4, he said: “We got on it [the train] about 19:10. We had just departed Peterborough, and then kind of an alarm went off, a kind of a soft alarm went off, which I heard before on the train.
“It said that, you know, an activation alarm has been activated in coach J.
“I didn’t know what it was, but then we suddenly started seeing people massing at the end of the carriage by the door… I wasn’t really sure what was going on.
“And then people started to get panicky.
“Someone said, ‘there’s been a stabbing’. And then people started to move quite quickly down towards our carriage.”
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He continued: “A woman came over the tannoy and said, ‘we are aware there is an incident. Just keep yourself safe’, which was scary to hear, because you didn’t know what was going on.
“Then we pulled into a station. I think everybody assumed it was Stevenage, because that was the next scheduled stop.
“Everyone just started to kind of run and then pile off the train, and then everyone just, there’s a bit of a panic, and everyone ran through the station forecourt.
“We ran out into the car park and ran up a hill and kind of out on to the road, and then we bumped into two or three young girls.
“We ran to someone’s house, and we hammered on all the doors and pressed the buzzers, and we got in, and some very kind, early-elderly couple looked after us until it was safe to leave.
“The kids are very shaken up by it, but dealing with it very well.”
Joe Giddens/PAPA Media
The incident took place at 19:42 on Saturday and British Transport Police (BTP) received reports of multiple stabbings aboard the 18:25 LNER service from Doncaster to King’s Cross
The train’s only other scheduled stop before King’s Cross was due to be at Stevenage.
Wren Chambers, who was due to get off in the Hertfordshire town, said they first became aware something was wrong when a man bolted down the carriage with a bloody arm, saying “they’ve got a knife, run”.
Wren said they and a friend ran to the front of the train and saw a man who had collapsed on the floor.
Wren said they felt “stressed and pretty scared” once they knew what was happening, but they were eventually able to get off the train unharmed.
“There was quite a lot of blood on the train, there was some on my bag, some on my jeans,” they told BBC Radio 5 Live.
“As soon as the train stopped and people got off most of them ran outside trying to get away from it, because we knew the attacker was still inside on the train.”
London Underground worker Dean McFarlane told the BBC that he saw the train pull into Huntingdon railway station at 20:00 with a passenger bleeding.
He said that on arrival, he saw multiple people running down the platform bleeding, with one man in a white shirt “completely covered in blood”.
He said he grabbed people and told them to leave the station, and tried to assist passengers who he believed were having panic attacks.
