Hero tour guides help disarm London Bridge attacker

By Alexandra Coulton

Two London tour guides were among those praised for their efforts in taking down a knife-wielding attacker who killed two people and wounded three others near London Bridge.

Tour guide Stevie Hurst and his colleague Thomas Grey were on the scene when a man who had previously been charged for terrorism began to stab bystanders in Fishmonger’s Hall and on London Bridge.

Hurst told the BBC he heard people screaming that the attacker had “stabbed a couple of women”.

“Everyone was just on top of him, trying to bundle him to the ground,” Hurst said.

“We saw that the knife was still in his hand… I just put a foot in to try and kick him in the head.

“We were trying to do as much as we could to try and dislodge the knife from his hand so he wouldn’t harm anyone else.”

Grey told the BBC he stamped on the attacker’s wrist to try make him release one of the two knives he was holding, including one taped to his wrist.

“I was brought up on rugby and the rule is ‘one in, all in’. I did what any Londoner would do and tried to put a stop to it,” Grey said.

“He had two knives on him, one in each hand, and it looked like they were taped to his hands.

“I stamped on his left wrist while someone else smacked his hand on the ground and kicked one of the knives away.”

One witness to the attack posted to Twitter that a man who was in Fishmonger’s Hall “Took a 5′ narwhal tusk from the wall and went out to confront the attacker”.

https://twitter.com/theamycoop/status/1200513388889223169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1200513388889223169&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fuk-england-london-50608315

The man with the tusk was reportedly joined by a man with a fire extinguisher who hosed down the attacker’s face.

The attacker was chased by witnesses and eventually shot by police.

“Someone kicked the knife away, somewhere northbound up London Bridge and then after that, the police armed response was really quick, got there almost instantaneously, and at that point, we were told he had a bomb vest so we cleared house and got out the way,” Gray told ITV.

“At that point, saw a guy get shot a couple of times and then I hit the deck. I hid behind a school bus full of little children … got the bus turned around and they went back south over London Bridge.

“At that point we were told to stay where we were, as we were then told he had a gun as well. So we just stayed put, heard another shot and a little explosion and we just heard ‘run’ so we just turned and hightailed it south over London Bridge and heard 15 or so gunshots.”

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Attack London Bridge terrorism Tour guides