Liverpool hospital bombing: ‘Someone’s blown me up,’ taxi driver told security guard

The taxi driver who survived the Liverpool terrorist bombing is said to have told rescuers: “Someone has blown me up”.

Witnesses of the blast outside Liverpool Women's Hospital have recalled the day's events.

They include a security guard who helped taxi driver David Perry to safety and a man who tried to rescue the bomber from the exploded cab.

Darren Knowles, a security guard who was outside the hospital as the bomb went off, reportedly said that Mr Perry stumbled from his cab screaming: “I want my wife.”

Mr Knowles told the Daily Mirror: “He was trying to tell us, 'there is a passenger, there is a passenger'

“I was trying to say to him 'Is he still in there?' and he was saying 'he has tried to blow me up, he has tried to blow me up’

“It all happened in a flash ... I heard a loud bang and thought it was mechanical failure in the taxi. I thought the engine had caught fire.

“But then I saw the taxi driver run out. He was panicking and screaming 'someone has blown me up'.”

He went on: “My first priority was stopping the taxi driver going back to the car, because he had his phone and other things in it and he wanted to get them out. I took him to the nearest nurse to get medical attention.

“He was screaming, panicking. We were just saying 'calm down, let's just see to you'.”

Mr Knowles said Mr Perry headed into the staff entrance of the hospital and sat down. That was the last he saw of him.

“God bless the guy. I wish him a speedy recovery,” he said.

Mr Knowles, who lives with his partner and two of their three children, said: “Everyone is calling me hero but I was just doing my job.”

Though he was initially calm after the attack, the weight of what had happened soon hit him. He said: “My hands were shaking when I realised how close I was to being blown up. But you don't think, you just do.”

As Mr Knowles dealt with the cab driver, Liam, a 21-year-old delivery driver, tried to pull the bomber from the cab.

Liam was parked in a car with his partner Steph just metres from the taxi when it exploded. He told BBC News he could see a man in the back.

“I went to go grab him but the flames became, he engulfed in flames very quickly. And I couldn't reach ahold of them without setting myself on fire,” he said.

20-year-old Steph, a student mental health nurse said: “Everyone was like, oh my God, is there a baby in the back? So I think that's why I'd come running back out.

“And I was like, Is there a baby in the back?”

Asked how the pair have been coping since the incident, Steph said: “It's scary to just think about how things could have been different to be honest. You do struggle with, is that ever going to happen again? ... I've said to myself and my family I'm not going to let it affect me.”

Steph said she felt “lucky to be alive”, echoing what Rachel Perry, the wife of David, said about her husband’s escape.