We DID take too long to reach terror victims
London Bridge ambulance chief’s admission
A THREE-hour delay in paramedics reaching some of the wounded in the London Bridge terror attack was ‘too long’, an ambulance boss said yesterday.
London’s director of operations Paul Woodrow blamed ‘communication issues’ between the emergency services at the inquest into the deaths of the eight victims.
The wait occurred despite all the attackers being shot dead just ten minutes after the horror began.
The ambulance service has been criticised for taking hours to send specially trained staff into the Borough Market courtyard where five victims died because it remained a ‘hot zone’.
This is an area designated by police commanders as too dangerous for medical personnel to enter.
Mr Woodrow admitted the decision to go in to help took ‘too long’. He told the inquest: ‘There clearly were some communication issues with information from people below street level in terms of understanding where patients were.
‘In the context of what was a very chaotic scene, with a lot of conflicting information, there were issues around the environment they were working with and it caused confusion about where patients were and how we could get to them.’
The three terrorists were killed by armed police by 10.16pm but specialist paramedics did not enter the courtyard area until 1am, said Gareth Patterson QC, representing the families of six of the victims.
He added that the van used by the terrorists to ram pedestrians, which was feared to have been rigged with explosives, was declared clear before midnight.
Mr Patterson said delaying trained paramedics was not ‘making the best use of them’. Even after 1am, the Borough Market area stayed a hot zone and paramedics who entered were breaking protocol to reach the injured, the inquest heard.
Nearly two hours after the attack, Marc Rainey, a senior ambulance officer on the ground, raised concerns about the time it was taking to send staff into areas in which there may have been casualties, the hearing was told.
Mr Woodrow said: ‘He was asking if there were individuals who might be prepared to volunteer to go into the area with armed police. That is not normal standard practice.’ Every medic who was asked then agreed to enter the hot zone and eventually 21 staff in seven teams went in.
Mr Woodrow did not apologise for the delay or explicitly say what could have been done differently. Instead he said there was a need to ‘learn some lessons’ from the attack.
During the delay, police and the public were inside the market trying to save the lives of the victims. They were unaware that ambulances were not coming and they would have to carry the injured to paramedics.
There had been reports after midnight that one of the terrorists was armed with an assault rifle, Mr Woodrow added.
There were 134 emergency calls about the attack on June 3, 2017, the Old Bailey hearing was told. Those who died in or around the courtyard included French chef Sebastian Belanger, 36, whose family argue he could have been saved if he had received better care sooner.
‘We have got to find ways of deploying staff with those specialist skills in a more timely manner,’ Mr Woodrow said. He added technology like drones and GPS devices could be used during future attacks to confirm the whereabouts of victims, emergency staff and attackers.
Mr Woodrow also praised his staff: ‘A lot of patients who were severely injured did make it to hospital and survived. I’m proud of my staff who put themselves in harm’s way to save lives.’
The inquest continues into the deaths of Mr Belanger, Xavier Thomas, 45, Christine Archibald, 30, Sara Zelenak, 21, James McMullan, 32, Kirsty Boden, 28, Alexandre Pigeard, 26, and Ignacio Echeverria, 39.
‘Not making best use of paramedics’