The police officer who tried to save Christine Archibald’s life as she lay dying on London Bridge was today among a group of first responders who met the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall as they thanked the emergency services for their work during the attack.
PC Liam Dolphin of City of London police told how he gave her CPR – and later hugged her distraught fiancé Tyler Ferguson after he learnt that she had died.
PC Dolphin, 30, who was among a group of officers at the royal visit to the Metropolitan Police’s special operations room in south London, said he believed he and his colleague Steven Morgan, 36, a special constable, were the first officers on the scene, arriving within 90 seconds of the 999 call.
“We thought we were turning up to a road accident,” Mr Morgan said. “But as we made our way to the south side of the bridge it became more severe with casualties. We were both doing first aid to the critically wounded.”
PC Dolphin said that when he arrived he found members of the public trying to help Ms Archibald, a 30-year-old Canadian charity worker, who had been hit by the van on the bridge. “I was giving her CPR,” he said. “I left her when the medics came.”
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Later he came across her fiancé Tyler Ferguson among the walking wounded. “I found him on the other end of the bridge,” he said. “He was quite distressed. He told me she had been pronounced dead. I was just hugging him for a while. He had a bit of a difficult time.”
PC Dolphin said the memory of that night remained vivid. “It sticks with you,” he said. “It’s very difficult.”
Mr Morgan said he had not been back to his day job – as a marine specialist with Scottish Power working with offshore wind farms – since the attack. “I decided it would not be best to go straight back,” he said. “It is quite a different role, being a special constable and doing a day job.”
Officers from British Transport Police told how they went to the aid of a colleague who was stabbed in the eye by the attackers.
“We thought we were going to a fight,” PC Leon McLeod, 29, said. But he told how “the naughty guys came back” as officers started treating the wounded and then fought with the terrorists.
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PC Alfred Iswa, 51, found a colleague who had been stabbed in the face.“I could see blood was coming out of his face, near the eye,” he said. “But I couldn’t see where.”
PC Iswa told how the injured officer, who he had join the force with him, was still trying to be involved in dealing with the attack. “I was trying to help him and he pointed his baton towards the attacker and said, ‘Get him’. Even when injured he was trying to fight,” he said.
“It has become clear that he is a fighter. He is a big guy. I was happy to have him by my side.”
Later PC McLeod said the severity of the incident never really sank in, “not even when the bullets started going.” The time from the first call to the shooting of the terrorists “felt like for ever”. But when he checked the time, he realised it had only been eight minutes. He said: “I thought, ‘Is that it?’”
Two City of London detectives also described how they arrived at the scene within two or three minutes of the call. Detetctive Constable Mark Alston, 35, said: “The whole thing was so surreal. It was just a strange situation to be in. There were people’s belongings all over the bridge. It was dead quiet there.”
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DC Tom Hayball, 33, said: “We had walking wounded being tended to by members of the public covered in blood. There was a real sense of community that came out of it.”
Prince Charles and Camilla also visited the Royal London Hospital where they met victims of the atrocity and thanked staff for their help.