My desperate fight to save park victims, by MP’s aide
He used his shirt in bid to stop the bleeding at attack scene
A HEROIC parliamentary assistant rushed to the rescue of victims of the Reading terror attack.
James Antell ripped off his shirt to use it as a tourniquet on a bleeding victim before carrying out CPR on another of the wounded.
‘I tried my very best to identify where the injuries were on the body of the casualty and took my shirt and used it to try and apply pressure to the wounds, but the casualties were in a very, very bad way,’ he told the BBC yesterday.
‘I moved to another casualty and did my best to try to identify where that wound was and apply pressure to it.
‘I felt a little bit shaken, but my overriding thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones.’
Mr Antell works for West Dorset Tory MP Chris Loder who told the Commons yesterday that he was extremely proud of the ‘remarkable and extraordinary effort’ by the former Cambridge University student. He said: ‘A member of our parliamentary family who by chance was at Forbury Gardens on Saturday ran courageously towards danger, his only focus to help the injured.’
He likened the heroics to those of fellow MP Tobias Ellwood, who tried to save PC Keith Palmer, a victim of the 2017 Westminster attack. It emerged yesterday that an unarmed police officer who stopped the suspect with a rugby tackle had been in the job for only 14 months.
The father of two was hailed as a ‘legend’ for diving on alleged knifeman Khairi Saadallah, 25. Police chiefs said his actions may have saved lives.
Scotland Yard’s head of counter-terrorism policing yesterday praised those who ran into danger. Neil Basu said: ‘I am proud of the heroes who rushed forward
to help. I know these will be lifechanging events for you too. But your actions were an example to us all to step forward and play our part.’
Meanwhile, the foster parents of a bomber who targeted a tube station called for an overhaul of the uK’s deradicalisation programme yesterday after it emerged that officials on the scheme had dropped Saadallah.
He was assessed by mentors on Prevent, which aims to stop individuals becoming terrorists.
But he was no longer with the scheme at the time of the attack because officials did not consider him a threat.
Instead he had been directed to mental health support.
the foster parents of Ahmed Hassan, 18, who set off a device at Parsons Green station in September 2017, said Prevent needed a complete overhaul.
Hassan’s foster mother Penny Jones, 73, said: ‘Prevent gave Ahmed £1,400 for a computer – and then he used that computer to buy all the components for his bomb. the Government needs to look at Prevent and overhaul the damn thing. they just throw money at problems but it doesn’t do a damn thing.
‘Prevent don’t do anything. When Ahmed went missing at one point Prevent got involved, but they just sent a young girl to talk to him about his problems. But he wouldn’t talk to her so they just sat in silence.’
Joe ritchie-Bennett, 39, a uS pharmaceutical worker, david Wails, 49, a scientist, and James Furlong, 36, a teacher, were killed in the reading attack.