BBC News - Firefighters 'lacked equipment' for 7/7 London bombings

1 November 2010 Last updated at 13:06

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Firefighters 'lacked equipment' for 7/7 London bombings

Seven victims were killed by a suicide bomber at Aldgate in 2005

Firefighters lacked the training and first aid equipment to treat the most seriously injured, the 7/7 London bombing inquests have heard.

They were told that some of the wounded in the attack at Aldgate in 2005 were untreatable by the fire service.

Firefighter Sean Jones said their first aid kit at the time was "useless" for dealing with such horrific injuries.

Continue reading the main story

7 JULY INQUESTS

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• The victims of 7 July

The inquests are into the deaths of 52 people who were killed by suicide bombers on three Tube trains and a bus.

Mr Jones told the hearings that he spent up to two hours in a bomb-damaged Tube train carriage at Aldgate trying to help the wounded and dying.

'Beyond remit'

He said: "At that stage all we carried on our fire engine was a very basic first aid kit, a number of bandages, elastic tape.

"The nature of the injuries that we saw on the train, there was no mild first aid - it's either seriously injured or they get up and walk off.

"So there was no triage that needed to be done, there was nothing like that. It was just purely a case of the casualties that we saw were way beyond our remit and skill levels to be able to treat.

"So our first aid kit would have been useless anyway."

He added: "We needed paramedics and Hems [Helicopter Emergency Medical Service] there."

Hugo Keith QC, counsel to the inquests, asked him: "In truth there was nothing that you or perhaps the police officers could have done for them because none of you had the specialist medical equipment?"

Mr Jones, who was based at Southwark fire station in south London at the time, replied: "There was nothing that could have been done."

The firefighter said the lack of radio communications in the Tube tunnel made no difference to him.

He said: "We just did what we needed to do. At no point did we look for instruction or require instruction. We just got on with the work that needed to be done."

Shehzad Tanweer, one of the four bombers who carried out the London attacks, blew himself up on an eastbound Circle Line train at Aldgate station, killing seven other people.

via bbc.co.uk