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London Ambulance Service remembers 7/7 on the 20th anniversary

Dozens of uniformed ambulance crews and control room staff from London Ambulance Service joined survivors and the bereaved at St Paul’s Cathedral to mark the 20th anniversary of the 7 July bombings.

The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, the Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and responders from police, fire and Transport for London were also invited to the ceremony of commemoration. Doctors and nurses from hospitals were also among the guests.

Tracy Russell was one of four candle bearers at the poignant service. She was chosen to represent London Ambulance Service to recognise the lives she saved while working as an emergency medical technician in the tunnel between King’s Cross and Russell Square.

Four coordinated attacks by suicide bombers on three tube trains and a bus killed 52 people and left hundreds injured. It was the worst terror attack on the capital.

Chief Paramedic Pauline Cranmer, pictured with Dr Anne Weaver from London’s Air Ambulance, had laid a wreath at the 7 July memorial at Hyde Park just before 9am this morning to mark the exact time the first of the tube bombs exploded.

At the same time, colleagues at London Ambulance Service headquarters in Waterloo gathered to hold a minute’s silence at the site’s memorial garden.

A bugler from the Service’s Ceremonial Unit played the Last Post and responders from 7/7 laid four wreaths – one to represent each of the bomb sites.

Darren Farmer, Director of Ambulance Operations, spoke at the short ceremony.

He said: “Our thoughts are with the people who were killed, the people whose lives were changed forever, and all of their loved ones.

“We shall never forget the part London Ambulance Service played in the response – from the call handlers who took those distressing first 999 calls to the ambulance crews who worked so hard to care for the injured.”

Sites and stations across London Ambulance Service held a minute’s silence as did colleagues working at the tennis championships at Wimbledon, including our Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Medical Officer Dr Fenella Wrigley.

PICTURE CREDIT: ©AELTC

At our education centre in Barking, our Ceremonial Unit’s Martin James and Hassan Haque led the memorial event where a moving poem – The Silent Echo – was read aloud to those assembled.

 

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