PA Regional Newswire of English Regions
LONDON — A survivor of the July 7 terror attacks in London had to wait so long for an ambulance that paramedics doubted she would live, an inquest has heard.
Kathleen Lazenbatt suffered a partially collapsed lung and struggled to breathe after suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan detonated his bomb on a Tube train at Edgware Road in London.
But she drew the “short straw’’ and was left in the wrecked train carriage for up to an hour after another victim was taken to hospital ahead of her, she said.
She told the inquest for the 52 killed of her agonising wait for an ambulance. “There was a point when they were going to take me out and then they changed their minds,’' she said.
“There were two Metronet engineers who assisted me quite a lot and one of them said to me ‘I’m afraid you’ve drawn the short straw’.’'
Another survivor, Elizabeth Owen, was taken to hospital instead, she said. “There was then a long gap when I believe there were no ambulances available,’' she went on.
“I was told by people who had been there that it was perhaps an hour we waited for an ambulance to come.’'
Although she was put on an intravenous drip while she waited in the carriage, she was not given any oxygen during this time, she said. “I was told afterwards that paramedics didn’t think I would survive because I had waited so long,’' she said.
Ms Lazenbatt also suffered shrapnel injuries to her right ankle, with debris strewn across her feet, in the 2005 atrocity.
A London Ambulance Service (LAS) document suggested the scene was cleared of casualties by 10.36am, the inquest heard.
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