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SA man saw London bus explode
13/07/2005 13:22 - (SA)
Lindsay Barnes
London - He should have been on the underground train that blew up near London's King's Cross train station, but he missed it.
Then just seconds after he decided not to catch the ill-fated double-decker bus rolling slowly past him in Russell Square, it blew up and threw him to the ground.
Bruised and with bits of shrapnel and glass in his face, former Richmond man Bruce Harvey was temporarily deafened by the explosion. He was across the road from the vehicle when it blew up and watched the roof shoot about 10 feet into the air, said his father, Pat Harvey, from his home in Richmond.
Later that day, Harvey left a brief message on his father's home phone, saying there had been a series of explosions in London. He said: "I'm safe, just in case you're worried," but gave no indication to his father how close he had come to losing his life, his father said.
Father shocked at events
Pat Harvey had a call the following day from his daughter, also based in the UK, telling him what a close call it was. "I was very shocked," the retired history lecturer said.
The bomb was on the upper deck of the bus and ripped it apart. Had it been in the lower section, police told Harvey later, the force of the explosion would have gone sideways and it was unlikely he would have survived.
Harvey, a financial consultant in his mid-thirties, should not have been anywhere near the capital city last Thursday, the day the four bombs shook its residents to the core.
He lives - and usually works - in Leeds with his Brazilian wife and two young sons, but his company, PricewaterhouseCoopers, had decided to send him to their head offices in London for a period.
He has been commuting by train each day, arriving at King's Cross station where he normally switches to an underground train on the Circle Line. On that day, he took a train running later than his usual one and missed the connection. When he arrived at the station the bomb had already exploded and King's Cross was in chaos. He began walking to work and spotted the red bus making its way down the road.
- The Witness
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