The Daily Telegraph

‘In all that chaos and hatred, all I see is my wife looking after me’

- By Sarah Knapton SCIENCE EDITOR

IN THE aftermath of the Westminste­r Bridge terror attack this year a woman in a blue coat was photograph­ed tenderly cradling the head of a man who had been struck by the car of terrorist Khalid Masood.

Crouching over him, her hands covered in blood, she gently tended to his wounds and whispered reassuranc­es as they waited for paramedics to arrive.

To one side his shoes lay neatly on the pavement, belying the terrible force that had prised them from his feet. In his unseen hand he clutched a postcard of the Queen.

In the confusion that followed it was unclear whether the pair knew each other, or if a kind-hearted stranger had stopped to help the stricken man.

But this week it emerged that the couple are Cara and Stephen Lockwood, who were visiting London on a day trip from Oxfordshir­e to celebrate Stephen’s 40th birthday. Minutes before, they had left the London Aquarium where they had been swimming with sharks and were trying to hail a taxi, when Masood began his deadly rampage. Their story was revealed this week in an episode of the BBC fly-on-the-wall series Hospital, which by chance was filming at St Mary’s in Paddington, west London, as the terror attack unfolded.

Speaking about the striking image, Mr Lockwood said: “This is me lying on the road and Cara is crouched over me, telling me to be OK, and it’s all right. I just see love in it really because in all that chaos and hatred all I can see is my wife looking after me.

“I feel like I am allowed to say we’ve won. We survived and we’re safe.”

Mrs Lockwood had been unwilling to use the London Undergroun­d because she feared a terror attack, so the couple decided to take a cab, and were struck when Masood mounted the pavement, mowing down pedestrian­s indiscrimi­nately.

Although she escaped with bruising and a twisted ankle, Mr Lockwood was left with serious face, chest and leg injuries which required immediate surgery. Doctors said although no single injury was life-threatenin­g, the cumulative effect could have been deadly.

“We’re quite private people,” said Mrs Lockwood. “We don’t go out a lot. This was a special occasion.” Breaking into tears, she added: “What he looked like in the road.

“He was just covered in blood. It was all over him. Everyone goes through s--, you know. But not this. Not being ploughed down.”

Mr Lockwood initially needed a four-hour operation to make urgent repairs to a deep cut to his leg and a broken tibia and fibula, an injury made far worse because the soft tissue had been ripped away from the bone by the force of the collision.

Following the operation, he regoing mained critically ill for several days, being kept under sedation and on life support.

“It’s really hard when you spend so much time with somebody and they’re taken away from you and you’re suddenly really, really alone,” said Mrs Lockwood as she anxiously waited for news of her husband.

“And you just want to take hold of him and give him a cuddle and a squeeze and take care of him but then he’s so fragile you just can’t touch him.

“I want him back home. I want to have a Friday night on the sofa with a pizza and a beer.” Following the attack, 30 people were treated in four London hospitals for injuries and six people were killed, including Pc Keith Palmer who attempted to disarm Masood. The incident at 2.20pm on March 22 lasted 82 seconds.

Mr Lockwood said: “I can remember making the decision to cross the bridge to get to a taxi on the other side, and that’s pretty much it.”

Speaking about his wife, he added: “She remembers it and I don’t.

“So I’ve got the broken body and she’s got the broken mind. But we’re

‘You just want to take hold of him and give him a cuddle and a squeeze, and take care of him’

‘She remembers it and I don’t. So I’ve got the broken body and she’s got the broken mind’

to deal with it together. We’re just a happy little unit really. We live our lives like anybody else, we go to work, come home, watch a bit of TV, have a bit of dinner and go to bed.

“This will change us, we’re going to appreciate each other more and for both of us to survive, you take things for granted, you step out of the door every morning and on your merry way you go.”

Surgeons took a large block of tissue from Mr Lockwood’s healthy leg and grafted it on to the damaged site in a complex nine-hour operation.

“It’s slightly robbing Peter to pay Paul but we’re hoping the robbery is worth the outcome,” said surgeon Shehan Hettiarach­y, a major trauma director at St Mary’s, who previously served as a military surgeon in Afghanista­n.

Mr Lockwood is now recovering at home with his wife. On the day of the London Bridge terror attack on June 4, he reposted the image again on Twitter.

“Me and my wife on the Westminste­r Bridge,” he wrote. “Just wanted to let them know we got through it, and so can they.”

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 ??  ?? The touching image, left, of a woman cradling an injured man after the Westminste­r Bridge terror attack has been revealed to be Cara and Stephen Lockwood, right, a husband and wife from Oxfordshir­e
The touching image, left, of a woman cradling an injured man after the Westminste­r Bridge terror attack has been revealed to be Cara and Stephen Lockwood, right, a husband and wife from Oxfordshir­e
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