I know how tragedy can bring out the quiet heroes
OF ALL the images from Wednesday, the day an Islamist terrorist brought tragedy to Westminster, the most poignant for me was of a blonde woman cradling the head of a bloodied man mowed down on the bridge.
Smartly suited, she had her head bowed over the man as he lay in the road. Who knows what she said to him or what drove her to this act of compassion when her own life may have been in danger?
Perhaps I feel more strongly about this than most. Because a selfless stranger once came to my rescue when I was lying stricken in the road. I was 17 and we were on our way home from a party when a drunk driver smashed head-on into our car.
My brother Michael, who was driving, dragged me from the back seat and laid me at the roadside.
He later told me I was unconscious. Yet I felt my head being cradled in the lap of a woman. She had come from her home nearby in her dressing gown to comfort me.
I remember she stroked my hair, repeatedly asked me to squeeze her hand to show I still had cognitive function and said everything would be all right. ‘I am a nurse,’ she said. ‘Trust me.’ And I did.
I had sustained what these days they call ‘ catastrophic’ internal injuries — for a while I was not expected to live. But despite being apparently unconscious, I had heard her words and felt her comfort me, and it gave me strength.
I spent weeks in hospital and throughout I remembered this stranger’s kindness.
We live in a world where selflessness is often seen as a rare commodity. But the response to Wednesday’s attack showed it in abundance as passers-by rushed to help.
It was on display, too, when Fusilier Lee Rigby was butchered near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich in 2013 — two women went to comfort him and another remonstrated with his murderers.
The trio became known as the Angels of Woolwich and all three put their lives in danger.
We should applaud the courage of Good Samaritans for they can suffer terrible trauma, too. And I have a heartfelt message for them.
That whether the person they comforted was conscious or not or lived or died, they should rest assured that their kindly face, soothing words and comforting hand will have done more good than they could ever have imagined — and, in the midst of evil and tragedy, it restores our faith in humanity.