The Royal London remembers July 7
Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the 7/7 bombings in London.
The Royal London Hospital was one of several hospitals to receive those injured in the attacks.
Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, 194 bombing victims were taken to The Royal London with seven taken to the intensive care unit (ICU).
Staff, including those who were there on the day, attended a short memorial service in the Atrium at The Royal London to reflect and hear from several individuals including Imam Ahmad Faruq Siddiq, a Chaplain at Barts Health.
“Today we remember, the unwavering dedication, the deep compassion, the excellence, skill, and selflessness shown by all those who served that day,” he said.
“Each of you will carry your own memories. For some, they are etched deeply. The sounds, the sights, the smell of smoke and blood. The chaos, the confusion. The carnage, the wounds, the death.
“And yet, even in that storm, you brought calm. You created order from chaos. You brought light into the darkness. You came together, shoulder to shoulder, to restore limbs, to save lives, to ease fear, to carry hope.”
Two decades on, staff have also recalled their memories of the day.
Jane McNeil was the lead anesthetist at The Royal London on July 7.
“My role, because of the way the major incident plan was written, was to go down to A&E and be the lead anesthetist and help organise resus with the lead nurse. A lot of people, who were going to come down during a major incident were not necessary going to be trauma savvy so our job was to be there, organise which patients were going where, to provide clinical input as well as helping to advise. It was a management role but also quite clinical.
"When the patients started to arrive, I just remember that everybody looked the same, because they were covered in grey dust, you couldn’t tell whether they were male or female or what colour their clothes were.
“Then we just had to get on with it and do our jobs, while it was a bit chaotic, we did our best and we did a good job.
“At the end of the day, I took everyone to the pub at about 8pm though none of us drank but we just sat down and had an almost unofficial debrief. When I was driving home, I can remember it was like the wild west with tumbleweed down Mile End road, it was just bizarre.
“It was the worst day of my career, but it was also the best day of my career because I was part of the team that wrote the major incident plan, and it worked and it saved a lot of lives on that day. My colleagues worked to the plan; we were very lucky that The (Royal) London had all that trauma experience and I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t - I think more people would have died (if I am quite honest).”
Marie Healy was a Consultant in Critical Care Medicine at The Royal London Hospital.
“At that time, I was the lead clinician for intensive care (ICU) and on that morning I was at home doing a lecture when the call came through that there was a major incident," she said.
"At this stage it was not clear about the nature of the incident. I remember driving because public transport came to a halt and London looked very surreal, only a few people on the streets and lots of police. Mobile phones went down soon after.
“I think early in the morning, we didn’t know how many patients we might have to admit to the hospital or to the ICU. We were aware from less serious incidents that our work doesn’t kick in immediately, as patients usually won’t come straight to ICU, as they will need stabilisation, additional investigations and surgical interventions so will arrive later in the day.
“By the time I arrived the team was already well organised and we were all allocated roles. That morning we concentrated on making more ICU capacity as there was only one empty bed. We discharged four patients to the wards and did three inter-hosital transfers from our ICU to other units so that we could admit those with major trauma. The hospital teams also discharged anyone who could be sent home.
“Seven patients who had been injured in the explosions were admitted over the course of the day following various surgical interventions. We also admitted 2 other patients from the wards.
“The biggest challenge for the ICU was the volume of seriously injured, the massive media interest and trying to coordinate the management of the patients as there were many different teams involved. One patient was visited by 17 teams the following day! I remember that we didn’t know the names of the patients either which added to the stress for relatives and we had to be careful not to mix them up in terms of their clinical management. It took a few days to determine which patients came from which incident as this was key to getting them identified. This was all very traumatic for those trying to find their loved ones.
“I remember how people rose to the challenge on that day. Everyone wanted to help and we had to make sure staff paced themselves as it would take weeks or longer to get through it.”
Mike Walsh was the on call trauma surgeon / surgeon in charge on July 7.
"My lasting memory of that day was being amazed at how fantastically all the departments and teams worked together during such a horrible occasion," he said.
“My role as on the call trauma surgeon was to be the surgeon in charge, this meant I was responsible for organsing what surgeries would be carried out and by who.
“The previous year we changed our approach to handling a major incident and we thought carefully about how staff roles should match their specialty.
“When I think back, it blurs a bit now, but I remember thinking what a fantastic team and hospital we had. Everyone respected who was in charge and no one's egos got in the way.”
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