Witnesses to Saturday’s knife attack on the LNER line between Peterborough and Huntingdon have described the dramatic scenes which unfolded shortly after 7.30pm. Several passengers said that at first they thought the screaming and confusion was a Halloween prank – until they saw bloodied people fleeing through the wagonsstates .
Passenger Olly Foster, who was sitting in carriage H, said he was listening to an audiobook when a man suddenly ran past him shouting: “Run! Run! He’s stabbing somebody, he’s attacking everybody!” At first Olly thought it was a joke, but by the expression on his face, everyone quickly understood that it was real. As he ran across the carriage, his hand was covered in blood after leaning against the seat. On the backs of the seats he saw, in his own words, “countless amounts of blood” coming from the two seriously wounded men in front of him.
Foster also described the moment when the attacker attacked a young girl – she was protected by an older man who stood in the way and suffered a wound to the forehead and neck. The passengers then gathered at the end of the short train and tried to find any weapon for self-defense. One of them armed himself with a bottle of alcohol. “We knew he had a knife, but some of the screams also suggested he might have a firearm. We stood there and prayed,” Foster said.
When the train stopped at Huntingdon, passengers ran out in panic. Foster saw about twenty people fleeing in terror, some covered in blood. “One man was holding his stomach, literally bleeding. He was screaming that he had been stabbed,” he added.
Another passenger, Wren Chambers, she told the BBC that she first heard the scream two carriages away. Shortly after a man ran past with a deep wound on his arm. She too thought it was a joke at first – until he started screaming that he had been stabbed. Chambers said she saw a person “very badly hurt, with a lot of blood around,” while fellow passengers tried to stop the bleeding with sweatshirts. One girl told her that the man, who ended up on the floor, was defending her with his own body when the man attacked.
They detained two men, one has already been released by the police
Only one of two men detained after a knife attack on a train in eastern England remains a suspect, British police said on Sunday evening, with the other released without charge. She also stated that one of the injured is still in danger. TASR informs about it according to Sky News.
Police previously announced that after an attack on a train near the town of Huntingdon on Saturday evening detained two British citizens – a 32-year-old man with dark skin and a 35-year-old man of Caribbean origin. In the case of the second of them, the investigation did not prove participation in the crime.
A 32-year-old resident of the nearby city of Peterborough remains in custody on suspicion of attempted murder. Deputy Police Chief Stuart Cundy said. He added that the police found a knife at the crime scene. The police do not consider the attack to be terrorist.
At least 11 people were injured in the attack and taken to the hospital. Five of them have since been released, but one is still fighting for his life. This is an employee of the railway company LNER, who tried to stop the attacker. “After viewing the footage from the train camera, I can say that the actions of this member of railway staff were heroic and undoubtedly saved lives,” Cundy said.
