Samad Billoo’s story – remembering 7/7

Samad Billoo – dispatcher in the 999 control room  

I remember the day quite vividly – the initial, fragmented reports that first hinted at the unfolding tragedy.

The morning started with an alert of an incident on the London Underground between Liverpool Street and King’s Cross.

Shortly after, a call came in for an incident at Edgware Road. Within minutes, the control room was inundated with hundreds of frantic calls.

Callers were giving conflicting accounts, some reporting that a train had collided with another train and there were others who spoke, fearfully, of a bomb explosion.

My colleagues and I immediately focused on our core responsibility: sending appropriate resources to each of the separate incidents. Amidst the unfolding chaos of the attacks, we were also getting a steady stream of routine emergency calls. The demand on the Service felt relentless.

I attended an emergency meeting with the Head of Control Services, where we agreed that we would secure support from outside organisations.

St John Ambulance, British Red Cross and neighbouring ambulance services agreed to handle emergencies calls that were unrelated to the bombings. This meant the rest of London could be taken care of while our core 999 teams were focusing our efforts on helping people caught up in the attacks.

I’ve never experienced anything like I did on that day. Reflecting on what we did, I suppose the way we handled the situation was by remaining calm under what were very difficult circumstances. Our objective was getting our crews to the scene as quickly as possible to save lives.