Streatham terror attack: Victim was ‘bleeding out in a pool of blood’

A man has told Sky News how he helped one of the three people injured in the Streatham terror attack, saying he was “bleeding out in a pool of blood”.

Dave Chawner said he was heading to the cinema when he saw what he thought was a shoplifting taking place with a man running down the street and bumping into someone before they fell to the ground and then got up again.

He then heard shouting and what he thought was a car backfiring, followed by “two minor explosions”.

He said he didn’t assume these were gunshots until he saw two police officers pointing a gun at an assailant.

Mr Chawner said he saw a man on the other side of the road who was down on the ground and “not lucid”.

Mr Chawner had a blanket with him for his cinema visit, which was placed over the victim’s wound to compress it.

He said: “In that moment I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary until I saw the guns and then I thought this is something different.”

Mr Chawner said the police were “incredible” and “competent”, “highly-skilled” and “incredibly good” at dealing with the situation.

He said he was on the phone to paramedics for over half an hour before they arrived, and police said they were trying to also call medical teams.

He said this was happening as “unfortunately an innocent man lay on the street bleeding out before anyone arrived”.

Mr Chawner said “police shared my frustration” in that “nobody was there even though we were less than a mile away from two of the biggest hospitals in London, one with an acute trauma unit”.

He added: “My only concern was the poor person I had seen on the street that was bleeding out in a pool of blood.”

He said there were three other members of the public who were helping to compress the wound with the blanket as he ran up the road to try and meet ambulances.

Mr Chawner insisted he did not want to use his experience as “some sort of political football”.

He earlier posted on Twitter: “I had to stay with someone who’d just been #stabbed in #Streatham for 30 minutes before a single ambulance arrived.

“I’m just over one mile from a hospital – I’m not having a go at anyone, but that’s not right, I just hope he made it.”

Health Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted: “All our gratitude goes to the NHS paramedics and emergency services who responded so rapidly to today’s incident in Streatham. Thinking of everyone involved. We must never be divided by terrorism.”

(c) Sky News 2020: Streatham terror attack: Victim was ‘bleeding out in a pool of blood’