‘The truck was being driven at top speed ... It hit a pram with a kid in. Demolished it’
SHOPPERS described how severed limbs and bodies were left littered across a blood-splattered Stockholm street yesterday in a scene reminiscent of a ‘warzone’.
Many told how they had been browsing in busy stores when a 30-ton lorry came hurtling towards them, killing at least four people and leaving many injured.
One said a pram was hurled into the air and desperate pedestrians ran for their lives as the lorry crushed everything in its path.
Another told of bodies and blood ‘ everywhere’ and even a dead dog with its owner screaming beside it.
The terror attack unfolded at Ahlens department store on Drottninggatan in the heart of Stockholm. CCTV footage shows the moment shoppers fled as the lorry accelerated towards them.
One moment they can be seen leisurely walking and enjoying an afternoon shopping. The next, they desperately run for cover as the lorry begins its killing spree.
The truck is then seen hurtling past the shop window leaving stands of clothing swinging from the impact of the speed.
Another video shows the lorry accelerate down the busy pedestrianised street as screams and a cloud of smoke fill the air.
Nils Bengtsson, told of the moment when he realised it was a terror attack. ‘I heard a loud bang and people screaming,’ he said. ‘I then saw the truck coming towards me. Then I started to think about what happened in Nice and realised that the same thing is happening here in front of me.
‘The truck was driving really fast and drove towards people at full force. I was about 100 metres [300ft] from where the truck crashed.
‘I was afraid about what I might see… but I wanted to help so I left the shop and walked out and I was met by chaos. There were injured people everywhere around the truck.
‘The truck was driving really fast. I saw both people and objects flying around the vehicle. People around me were in shock. Everyone was crying and screaming.
‘It felt like being in a warzone. There were several hundred people on the street. I saw at least three or four dead bodies on the street where the truck had crashed.’
Another eyewitness described the moment a baby’s pram was crushed as the vehicle came careering into pedestrians.
Glen Foran, an Australian tourist in his 40s, said: ‘I turned and saw a big truck coming towards me. It swerved from side to side.
‘It didn’t look out of control, it was trying to hit people. It hit people, it was terrible. It hit a pram with a kid in it, demolished it.’
Yosef Jawad said he saw an English-speaking woman collapsed on a zebra crossing and screaming: ‘My legs, my legs.’
‘Her feet hung loose and there was blood everywhere,’ he said. ‘I’m from the Middle East, you see very bad things on TV from Iraq, but this was terrible.’
Radio presenter Martin Svennigsen said he tried desperately to save those who had been crushed by the vehicle.
‘There was blood everywhere. I saw two shattered bodies and tried to save a third, but could not. I leaned back and closed his eyes,’ he told Swedish newspaper Expressen.
He said the man who died was aged between 30 and 40, adding: ‘I was struck by how many people wanted to help others... It was completely incomprehensible. So incredibly hard to take in.’
Christoffer Ung told TT news agency: ‘I was on my way to the exit and just saw the wall coming towards us like an avalanche.
‘People turned in panic and fled towards the exits. My first thought was that a bomb had exploded. When I came out of the building I saw flames emerging from it.’
Store manager Malin Emto said: ‘Suddenly there was a customer
‘Wall came at us like an avalanche’
who had a panic attack and started screaming. We ran to the window and saw two dead bodies, badly mangled.’
Besarta Gashi, 31, who is pregnant, said she and her nine-yearold daughter Leonida were feet from being crushed by the lorry.
‘We heard screams. We started to run but did not know where it came from. Just then the truck came a hair’s breadth away from us,’ she said. ‘I jumped away and pulled back my sister and daughter. They had just enough time to get away. I saw parts flying... many dead on the ground. A girl under the truck who could not escape.’
At first, she feared that she had lost her unborn baby but was last night told by doctors that the child had survived.
A Syrian woman, who gave her name only as Narin, sobbed as she told how she saw a woman whose legs had been cut off in the carnage.
She said: ‘I was terrified, I am still shaking. The truck went at high speed – it crushed everything in its path. In the beginning we thought it was an explosion because of the loud sounds.’ Photographer Annevi Petersson said she was inside one of the shops when she heard screaming as the lorry hurtled past. She said: ‘I ran out and there were people lying in the street…
‘Just outside the store there was a dead dog, the owner screaming, there was a lady with a severed foot, there was blood everywhere, there were bodies everywhere, people standing by their loved ones but also people running away.
‘There was the noise and then everything went quiet and then people started screaming and crying.’ Reporter Harriet Rose-Gale, 26, from Marlborough, Wiltshire, was eating lunch yards from the spot where the attack happened.
‘I could see a truck and what we could only assume was a lifeless body in front of it,’ she said.
‘It had a towel covering it and there was another body with a white sheet in the middle of the road. There was so much panic because of what’s just happened in London. Everyone is on high alert.
‘ There were crowds flooding along the street to get away and
lots of police officers with guns and lots and lots of sirens.’
One unnamed witness told of how he saw the truck come speeding towards him. ‘He mowed down eight people there and I saw four bodies a little further away.
‘A woman with a small child became completely paralysed and just stood still. I grabbed her and another woman and threw us all into a stairwell.’ As the chaos unfurled, a plain clothes officer screamed at onlookers to leave the scene, warning that there could be a bomb inside the lorry. John Backvid witnessed the aftermath of the attack and told how passers-by tried to help the injured before the emergency services arrived. He told BBC News: ‘Some people were on the ground doing CPR.
‘The first thing I felt was a bit of smoke in the air. I saw a gathering of people and the truck on fire – it was deep in the store and the store fire alarm was going.
‘It was chaotic. I could not see if anyone was driving it but it got out of control. I saw at least two being run over. I ran as fast as I could.’