The Express: I won't be beaten by terror

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Express, The/The Express on Sunday (Published as Express, The (London, England)) - August 5, 2005

• Author/Byline: Jo Willey

 

SURVIVORS of the 7/7 suicide terror attacks yesterday spoke for the first time about their ordeals as they began to rebuild their shattered lives.

 

As one man vowed never to be beaten by terror, a woman said she sees shadows of dead people in her sleep and is too scared to travel on the Tube.

 

Garri Holness, 36, had part of a leg blown off when Germaine Lindsay, 19, detonated a device, killing himself and 26 commuters on a train from King's Cross to Russell Square. But Mr Holness feels no hate for the bombers.

 

Speaking on the four-week anniversary of the four blasts which killed 52 people, he relived the moment at 8.50am when his life changed forever.

 

From his bed at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London, he said: "They were warped individuals with no life who needed a goal in life - to say they have done something in life to be a martyr.

 

"If I allow myself to have a bad day then they have won that one day from me . . . I won't allow that to happen.

 

"They were brainwashed individuals and I feel sorry for them."

 

Recalling the terrifying moments after the explosion, he said: "One girl shouted out, 'I've lost my legs', then I looked at my legs and picked up my left foot at a very funny angle." He is still waiting to have a skin graft on the affected left leg but insisted: "I'm one of the lucky ones."

 

But another survivor of the same blast said her life has been blighted by nightmares and panic attacks.

 

Muslim Zeynep Basci, 21, said she feels guilty about surviving while others perished. The bank employee miraculously escaped with just cuts and bruises and emerged from Russell Square station covered in other people's blood, shaking uncontrollably.

 

"I am struggling to act normally but I often wake up feeling suicidal. I keep thinking about what they went through - I saw humans being tortured, I saw them in a terrible state, " she said.