A construction worker hurled chairs, pint glasses, bottles and discarded bicycle parts at the terrorists to get them to stop attacking a woman who had already been repeatedly stabbed.
Gerard Vowls, 47, said he heard one shout “This is for Allah” as they crowded over her. He had been watching the Champions League final in a pub and was going home when the attack began.
“They just looked blank. They knew what they wanted to do, and it was to stab people. They just wouldn’t stop
The three men appeared “brain dead”, he said. “They just looked blank. They were in another frame of mind. They just didn’t care who they killed. They looked organised. They knew what they wanted to do, and it was to stab people. They just wouldn’t stop.”
Mr Vowls heard a man say that he had been stabbed. At first he did not believe him, but the man moved his hand and blood began to pour from his torso. Then he saw a blonde woman, thought to be in her twenties or thirties, being stabbed. “All three of them were on the one woman. One went, ‘This is for Allah’. They went on stabbing her. She was going, ‘Help me, help me’ .”
Mr Vowls said: “I tried to throw a bike at him. It was the basket of the bike. The bike was on the ground. The three of them ran off towards Borough Market. They got as far as the Globe [pub] and some guy came round the corner saying, ‘Run, run, run, they’ve got knives. They’re terrorists. They’re going to kill you.’ But he was too late. They got to him. He got stabbed as well.”
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Mr Vowls, a builder for Laing O’Rourke working on Crossrail, said the attack continued around the market. He thought a terrorist was chasing him and hoped he could lead the man on to the street where police could shoot him.
“At the Southwark Tavern, I saw a black guy get stabbed. He was on the floor. I was telling everyone, ‘Go, go, go. They’ve got knives, they’re terrorists.’ They went to a restaurant, and [then] another one. They went to the Wheatsheaf [pub]. As they left, I was going, ‘Oi, cowards!’ I chucked a bottle at them, pint glasses, stools, chairs — whatever I could find.
“Then [the attackers] went to the Market Porter. They stabbed a man and then a woman. I heard bottles going. They came out of there. They went to the restaurant on the right. They went in there, then they came out, and they stabbed a black guy. I heard him scream. It was like a sword battle.”
“I was going, ‘Oi, cowards!’ I chucked a bottle at them, pint glasses, stools, chairs — whatever I could find
Mr Vowls said that he could see that the suicide belt strapped to the chest of one of the men was a fake. “I could see it was duct tape. I knew it wasn’t real.”
After the attack, Mr Vowls spoke to other people caught up in the violence. A man told him that a friend who had been stabbed had just died. “He just started crying his eyes out. I was putting my arm around his shoulder.”
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He returned to his flat in Bermondsey and said that he woke at 5.30am yesterday haunted by the memory of the woman crying for help.
A Romanian baker hit an attacker over the head with a crate. Florin Morariu, who works at Bread Ahead in the market, said: “Everyone was running, people, women, they were fainting.” Seeing the stabbings, he at first froze but then struck one of the attackers. Afterwards he let about 20 people into the bakery and closed the shutters to keep the terrorists out.
Diners in the El Pastor restaurant on Stoney Street used cloths and ice to treat a woman who had been stabbed. Giovanni Sagristani, 38, was with friends when an attack happened. His partner Carlos Pinto, 33, was one of two nurses who helped her.
“They took ice and cloths and tried to stop the bleeding. She lost half a litre. He kept pressure on the wound,” Mr Sagristani said.
A taxi driver tried to ram an attacker after seeing him stab a woman. The driver, Chris, told LBC radio: “I spun the cab round and was about to ram him. He side-stepped and three police officers came running with their batons drawn.”