Doctor's praise for strangers who carried victims the length of London Bridge after terror attack

The first doctor on the scene of Saturday’s attack today praised the response of strangers who carried victims the length of London Bridge for treatment.

Chris Lambert, 46, an emergency doctor with London’s Air Ambulance, said the willingness to help showed him that the message of “love not hate”, espoused after the Manchester bombing on May 22, had been acted upon.

“I think I really saw some of that on the night — love being shown to complete strangers by those bystanders and professionals on the scene,” Dr Lambert told the Standard.

“There were a number of casualties brought across the bridge, each one carried by four, five, six people, which is not an easy thing to do. They were using whatever means they could.

“Some had carry sheets provided by the ambulance service. It’s very inspiring to see the courage of people not to run away but to pick up victims and help them to a place of safety. It’s an image, a memory, that will stay with me — that courage, and people performing CPR and doing everything they could to help.

Dr Chris Lambert: One of the lead doctors who help the injured during the the terrorist attack on London Bridge

“We had various bystanders, some with no medical background at all, being very composed and calm and reassuring to the patients, which made a big difference.

“We had a group of junior doctors, maybe on an evening out. They offered up their skills.

“They were really helpful on the scene. They were able to alert me if something was changing with the patient they were looking after.

“It was inspiring to see young doctors putting themselves at risk and going the extra mile.

“I never got the opportunity but I do want to put out my thanks — and to everybody at the scene.”

Aftermath of London Bridge and Borough Market terrorist attack

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Dr Lambert was accompanied by Dr Michael Christian, who recently joined the air ambulance from Canada, and Tracy Porter, an emeritus paramedic from London Ambulance Service. They were one of six London’s Air Ambulance trauma teams deployed on the night.

Senior LAS staff set up a command point on the north side of the bridge, making it easier to assess casualties.

“We had some victims with knife wounds, some victims with more blunt injuries which you would get from contact with a van,” Dr Lambert said.

He instructed the first-aiders to keep talking to the victims. “I told them, ‘If the patient stops talking or becomes quiet, then please let me know. Then I can step in.’

“The key was to grab people in whatever state they were in and take them to a place of safety. That meant that the patients I had in front of me were in quite a tight huddle. It’s easier to move between them.”

At one point, the medics had to move to another area amid fears they were in danger. Dr Lambert said the presence of the police and security forces meant he felt “very well protected and very safe”. He said: “On Saturday night the response was excellent. I was really, really impressed. We work every day with the LAS. There was a very professional, very well-run response. All the right procedures were put in place to get patients to safety as quickly as possible. It felt a privilege to be part of.”

London’s Air Ambulance, which operates a helicopter in daylight and fast-response cars at night, needs about £6.4 million a year in charitable donations to keep running.

Dr Lambert, formerly an emergency physician at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, said: “The main challenge in an incident like this for us is to shift the way we work. We are trained to work in a very detailed way with one patient. It’s that shift of approach to oversee a number of patients to make sure each one gets what they need.

“We make sure the most unwell are stabilised. If we had a patient who was deteriorating, we could quickly do some simple interventions before they go to hospital.”

He added: “One of the things I found moving from relatives of victims is this message of being determined not to hate these people, but respond with love — this ‘love not hate’ message. I felt I experienced that on the night. Just reflecting on it on a personal level ... whatever is thrown at us, if we continue to respond with love, hopefully the ideology behind these attacks can’t win.”

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