Eyewitness recalls aftermath of Huntingdon train attack

ODN

Eyewitness Dean McFarlane, who works for Transport for London, describes the aftermath of a stabbing attack on board a Doncaster-London King's Cross train on Saturday. He recalls seeing “blood on his face”.  Report by Ajagbef. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

Transcript

00:00So when the train came into the station I didn't see anything immediately on the

00:04platform. I recognised that the train was not supposed to be on the platform so I

00:09tapped in to enter to see what was going on. As I walked onto the platform I could

00:14see people standing in the doorways of the train looking a bit confused and a

00:19little bit distressed. As I looked to my left I spotted a young lad who was laying

00:24on the floor in the train door area. He then sort of slid back into the train.

00:31I could see blood on his face. I was still unaware at this point of what was

00:37happening. As I see them gathered at the front I wanted to go up and establish

00:41what was going on and that's when I suddenly heard people screaming and

00:45shouting run run run. Of course I'm still stood there like a deer in headlights

00:50trying to process what is actually happening. At this point I see people

00:55running past me covered in blood and that's when I realised something's

00:58happened that obviously shouldn't be happening. This is something quite

01:01serious. In the distance it looked like I spotted someone dressed all in black

01:06jump off the train and start heading down in our direction as people were

01:11running. So I've turned behind me. I spotted people congregated behind me on

01:16the platform. So immediately I just gestured towards the door and just shouted

01:20to everyone run out the station please exit leave leave leave. As I left the

01:25station obviously aware that something's going on that's quite serious I turned to

01:30my right outside the car park and I see someone running around the car park

01:33dressed in black looking a little bit sort of almost like they don't know what

01:37they're doing or where they are. They're just running around aimlessly. I

01:42couldn't quite tell if that was an attacker. I sort of just took it as I need to get

01:45away safely quickly. So I turned the opposite direction and ran up the hill

01:50away from the station to the main road and that's where I met some of the

01:55people that were present on the train when the incident took place. By this

01:58point police have swarmed the station. They've all arrived. From my belief there

02:03one of the attackers was apprehended outside the station. I believe he was

02:08waving a knife shouting something to the coppers. They tased him, got him to the

02:13floor and apprehended him. But while this was happening I was trying to comfort a

02:17passenger that was having a panic attack on the street just outside the station.

02:21So some people told me they weren't even aware of what had happened. They were

02:25completely oblivious. One of the guys I was stood next to who was trying to

02:29travel back to London he informed me that he see people covered in blood

02:33running up the train shouting that people were stabbing people. His initial

02:38response was it must be a Halloween prank. People are drunk and intoxicated. They're

02:42trying to be clever. He said so initially he disregarded it. He didn't really think

02:46too much into it. Obviously when more people started coming down the train in a

02:51panic then he realized hang on a minute something clearly is seriously going on

02:55and that's as the train was routed into the platform here at Huntingdon.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended