I survived 7/7, but still see the suicide bomber everywhere

20 years have handed for the reason that 2005 London assaults, however the face of the lead suicide bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, has by no means left Dan Biddle’s reminiscence.

It feels as actual in the present day because the day they regarded into one another’s eyes.

“I could be in within the kitchen and he’s stood within the backyard,” says Dan, who has advanced post-traumatic stress dysfunction.

“He is there, dressed as he was on the day, holding the rucksack, simply together with his hand above it, about to detonate it once more.”

Even when Dan appears away, the bomber continues to be there when he appears again.

“I noticed this man actually disassemble himself in entrance of me, and now I am seeing him once more.”

Warning: This text accommodates particulars some readers might discover distressing

Dan was in touching distance of Khan, on a rush-hour London Underground Circle line prepare on 7 July 2005. How he survived is sort of past rational clarification.

“As as we pulled out of Edgware Street station, I might really feel any individual gazing me. I used to be nearly to show round and say, ‘What are you ?’, and I see him put his hand within the bag.

“After which there was a only a brilliantly white, vivid flash – warmth like I’ve by no means skilled earlier than.”

Khan had detonated a home made bomb – made utilizing an al-Qaeda-devised chemical recipe – that he was carrying in his rucksack.

The gadget killed David Foulkes, 22, Jennifer Nicholson, 24, Laura Webb, 29, Jonathan Downey, 34, Colin Morley and Michael Brewster, each 52.

In complete, 52 people were killed that day, by 4 bombs detonated by Islamist extremists. One other 770 have been injured.

Dan was blown out of the prepare, hit the tunnel wall and fell into the crawl area between the tunnel wall and the monitor.

His accidents have been catastrophic. His left leg was blown off. His proper leg was severed from the knee down. He suffered second and third-degree burns to his arms, arms and face. He misplaced his left eye – and his listening to on that aspect too.

He suffered an enormous laceration to his brow. A pole from the tube prepare’s inside fittings went into his physique and he endured punctures and ruptures to his kidneys, lungs, colon and bowel. He later misplaced his spleen.

Dan was probably the most severely injured sufferer of the assaults to outlive. And he was aware all through.

He initially thought the white flash was {an electrical} explosion.

Particles had fallen onto him, and his arms and arms have been alight. He might see the flames flickering.

“Straight after the explosion, you could possibly have heard a pin drop. It was nearly as if everyone had simply taken a giant breath,” Dan says, “after which it was like opening the gates of hell. Screaming like I’ve by no means heard earlier than.”

Dan might see among the lifeless. He tried to push right down to lever himself up from the particles. He realised how profusely he was bleeding.

“The preliminary feeling was certainly one of complete disbelief. It was like, certainly God, that is only a nightmare.”

Dan’s thoughts instantly turned to his father, and the way he could not bear for him to witness this.

“My dad can’t be the individual that walks right into a mortuary and goes, ‘Yeah, that is my son’,” Dan says. “I could not bear the considered that.”

He did not consider he would get out of the tunnel. However the will to outlive instinctively kicked in and he screamed for assist.

The primary particular person to reply was fellow passenger Adrian Heili, who had served as a fight medic throughout the Kosovo struggle. If it had been anybody else, Dan believes he would have died.

“The very first thing he stated to me was, ‘Don’t fret, I have been on this state of affairs earlier than, and by no means misplaced anybody.’

“And I am considering, ‘How are you going to have gone by means of this earlier than?’

“After which he stated to me: ‘I am not going to deceive you. That is actually going to harm.'”

Adrian utilized a tourniquet and pinched shut the artery in Dan’s thigh to cease him bleeding to dying. Dan’s life was actually in Adrian’s arms till paramedics have been capable of attain him about half an hour later.

Adrian helped many extra within the hours that adopted – and in 2009 obtained the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery.

Dan’s trauma was removed from over. He was taken to close by St Mary’s Hospital the place he repeatedly went into cardiac arrest. At one level, a surgeon needed to manually therapeutic massage his coronary heart to deliver him again to life. He was given 87 items of blood.

“I feel there’s one thing in all of us – that elementary want to reside.

“Only a few individuals ever get pushed to the diploma the place that is required.

“My survival is right down to Adrian and the outstanding care and simply brilliance of the NHS and my spouse.”

Bodily survival was one factor. However the toll on Dan’s psychological well being was one other.

After eight weeks in an induced coma, Dan started a year-long journey to leaving hospital – and he realised he’d should navigate the world exterior in a different way.

His nights turned consumed with psychological torture.

He dreaded having to shut his eyes and fall asleep, as a result of he would discover himself again within the tunnel.

“I get up and [the bomber] is standing subsequent to me,” Dan says. “I will be driving – he is within the again seat of my automotive. I will look within the store window and there is a reflection of him – on the opposite aspect of the road.”

These flashbacks have led to what Dan describes as survivor’s guilt.

“I’ve replayed that second one million occasions over in my head. Was there one thing about me that made him do it? Ought to I’ve seen one thing about him then tried to cease it?”

By 2013 Dan had reached a harmful low. He tried to take his personal life 3 times.

However he had additionally began a relationship together with his now-wife Gem – and this was a vital turning level.

The subsequent time he got here near suicide it was Gem’s face he noticed when he closed his eyes, and he realised that if he ended his personal life he would inflict appalling trauma on her.

Gem persuaded Dan to take a psychological well being evaluation – and he started to get the skilled assist he wanted.

In 2014 he agreed – as a part of his remedy and makes an attempt to handle the situation – to do one thing he thought he would by no means do: return to Edgware Street.

When the day got here, Dan sat exterior the station experiencing flashbacks and listening to the sounds of seven/7 once more: screams, shouting and sirens.

He and Gem pressed on. As they entered the ticket corridor there have been extra flashbacks.

The station supervisor and employees have been anticipating him and requested if he needed to go right down to the platform. Dan stated it was a “bridge too far”. Gem insisted all of them go collectively.

After they reached the platform, a prepare pulled in. Dan started to really feel sick. However the prepare quietly moved on with out incident – and by the point a 3rd prepare had arrived he discovered the braveness to board it.

“I really feel actually, actually sick. I am sweating. She’s crying. I am tensing, ready for a blast. I am ready for that that massive warmth and that strain to hit me.”

After which the prepare stopped on the level within the tunnel the place the bomb had gone off – an association between the motive force and the station supervisor.

“They’d stopped the prepare precisely the place I would been mendacity. I keep in mind trying down onto the ground and it was a extremely bizarre feeling – realizing that my life actually got here to an finish there.”

Because the prepare pulled away, one thing inside Dan urged him to get off on the subsequent station and transfer ahead together with his life.

“I will go away the station, I will do no matter I will do in the present day, after which I will marry this superb, lovely lady,” he says. The 2 tied the knot the next yr.

Eleven years on, Dan feels pushed to do one thing constructive together with his life.

He now runs his personal firm serving to disabled individuals into work – an expert journey he may by no means have launched into had it not been for the bomb.

He nonetheless has flashbacks and unhealthy days however he is discovering methods to handle them – and has revealed a ebook of what he has been by means of.

“I am very fortunate to nonetheless be alive. I’ve paid an immense, monumental value. I will simply maintain preventing every single day to be sure that him and his actions by no means win.”

A listing of organisations within the UK providing assist and knowledge with among the points on this story is offered at BBC Action Line