Jason Killens’ story – remembering 7/7

Jason Killens KAM – CEO, then Ambulance Operations Manager

On the day I was at a meeting with colleagues at Millwall Football Club. We were all there just before 9 o clock and I remember everyone’s pagers going off with information about an incident at Liverpool St.

I was asked to come back to our Waterloo Headquarters and be part of the team that attempted to coordinate our response.

We were in the conference room trying to make sense of the information coming in. We initially thought there were 10 bomb sites because patients were emerging from different stations, it was a very confused picture, rapidly changing and we were trying to make sense of it.

Our people went into the tunnels, the tube trains, not knowing what they were going to face and they saw some really difficult stuff. I remember their bravery as they went into that chaos as others were coming away.

We were sending resources to the different sites but we also worried about the rest of London. We weren’t prepared for it: we had never planned for or tested a plan for a multi-site incident and certainly nothing of that complexity.

It was clear pretty early on that it was a deliberate act of terror and arguably everything changed as a result of what happened in July 2005.

Since then things are very different, there’s lots of testing and exercising for multi-site simultaneous events. We have improved our plans, facilities, control rooms, kit and technology.

I think what stays with me is the conversations I had with our people who went into the tunnels: the severity of the injuries, the number of patients, the conditions they were working in. It was very difficult. And I will never forget the stories of some of the survivors we met in the weeks and months that followed.

But I also reflect on the fantastic work that everyone in the organisation at the time did to respond. And then two weeks later there was a second attempt. Luckily those devices didn’t go off but the response was pretty similar so people had to relive it two weeks later.

When the chips are down that is when you see the best of people. This is what people joined London Ambulance Service for. We can take pride in the response that we gave. The great care we gave to patients, those that we saved and made a real difference for the rest of their lives

7/7 was a milestone event in how ambulance services and emergency services are set up and prepared. At the time ambulance services didn’t have a Hazardous Area Response Team, we didn’t have dedicated control rooms and facilities, we didn’t have radios that worked underground and we certainly didn’t have plans to deal with multi-site events. Things have changed for the better.