Heroic husband gave his life to save wife from terror attack

THE FIRST victim of the Westminster terror attack died as Big Ben chimed, after he stepped in heroically to save his wife.

American tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, had been on a whistlestop tour of London with his wife Melissa when they were both struck by a car on Westminster Bridge.

Mr Cochran, pushed his wife away, bearing the full impact of Khalid Masood’s hired Hyundai Tucson, sending him flying over the balustrade and on to the embankment below.

He had suffered terrible injuries and was pronounced dead 17 minutes after a paramedic arrived as Big Ben struck 3pm, an Old Bailey inquest heard.

Giving evidence, Mrs Cochran told how she and her husband had been visiting London from the US as part of a tour of Europe for their wedding anniversary.

On March 22 last year they had visited a number of tourist attractions, ending up at Westminster Abbey.

Mrs Cochran remembered looking to her right on the bridge with her husband on the left as a car approached.

She said: “My next recollection, after I read some of the witness statements, I remember hearing a car revving.

“I remember seeing the front of the vehicle. The next thing I remember, being on the ground.”

Mrs Cochran said she was badly injured and spent about a month in hospital afterwards.

She added: “We were just spending the entire day seeing everything we could see. “We had one day in London so we were cramming everything in we could.

“We had twoand-a-half hours in London before the attack.”

Gareth Patterson QC, for three of the victims, asked: “Kurt’s right arm went out. “Do you remember when he reached across and then pushed you out of the way?”

Mrs Cochran said she had no memory of it, but added that it was typical of her husband.

In the space of 82 seconds Masood, 52, killed four pedestrians including Aysha Frade, 44, and Andreea Cristea, 31, before stabbing Pc Keith Palmer to death at the gates to the Palace of Westminster.

The rampage ended when he was shot dead by a plainclothes officer who had rushed to the scene. The hearing continues.