The Duchess of Photobombs! Kate meets heroes who saved London Bridge victims
WHEN the Duchess of Cambridge popped in for a surprise visit, it was too good an opportunity to miss for this delighted nurse.
The health worker held up the camera for a smiling selfie – just as the royal came into view. The nurse, whose name was only reported as Ellie, captured the moment yesterday as Kate visited the hospital that dealt with victims of last week’s London Bridge terror attack.
In a post on the picture sharing site Instagram, she joked: ‘It’s not every day you get photobombed by the Duchess of Cambridge!’ Kate met both victims and staff at King’s College Hospital in south east London, where she was told how emergency teams used up a week’s worth of medical equipment in 90 minutes as they worked to save victims of the atrocity.
Meeting survivors still being treated more than a week after the attack, the Duchess was told about the mammoth effort by the emergency team and told them: ‘what you do is remarkable.’ She said: ‘You just got your heads down and got on with it. The response was amazing.
‘I presume you are trained to cope with this but hope this kind of incident never happens.’ Kate, dressed in a blue tweed Rebecca Taylor suit and Manolo Blahnik heels, arrived at lunchtime for the hour-long visit.
Malcolm Tunnicliff, clinical director of the emergency department, told her how half the 14 victims taken to King’s were in a critical condition after receiving stab wounds. He said: ‘It was the volume [of patients] in such a short space of time. we went through a week’s worth of kit in just an hour and a half.
‘And while we were are quite used to dealing with young men that stab each other, this time there were quite a lot of ladies who had suffered serious, multiple injuries. That was quite shocking to many. The Duchess was surprised to hear that.’
He added: ‘I think the Duchess was really affected by the dedication of the staff and how resilient they are. They are very proud to work for King’s and the NHS.’