Hero walked from Tavistock Square to Acton before being treated

THE driver of the bus ripped apart by a terrorist bomb told The Times last night how he tried to rescue his injured passengers in the minutes after the explosion. George Psarabakis, 50, who was meant to be on another bus route but swapped with a colleague at the last minute to the No 30, thought that he had hit the pavement when the bomb went off.

“I heard a bang and thought I had hit something on the kerb, then turned around and realised the whole of the back of the bus was gone. Then I looked behind me and thought everyone must be dead.”

With only cuts and bruises, Mr Psarabakis climbed out of his cab and started helping to pull survivors from the wreckage of the double decker. “I looked down at myself and saw that I was OK, then my next thought was to do something for the injured. I helped as many as I could off and kept going until my back went — it was agony. I really tried my hardest to get the victims off the bus — I really did.”

After police cleared the area, fearing further explosions, Mr Psarabakis began walking west along streets crowded with commuters stranded outside Tube stations and unable to get to work.
Although he lives in Stoke Newington, in North London, he continued his journey west for seven miles and sought help only once he reached the Central Middlesex Hospital in Acton at about 10.50am. He was still wearing his blood-spattered uniform.

He was treated for shock and released at 2pm, when he went home to be reunited with his wife and children. “I haven’t been able to sleep since, because of the pain, and I still feel very shocked and confused,” he said last night. “I cannot believe there was a bomb on the bus. It was a terrible thing to see. At first I thought, ‘How am I alive when everyone is dying around me?’ ”

July 9, 2005