Alive - by being late for work
2005-07-07 23:27
London - If Lindi O'Neil, whose family lives in George, had not been late for work, she probably would have been dead.
The 27-year-old legal adviser in trademarks for British American Tobacco, arrived at the Liverpool Street station on Thursday morning shortly after a bomb exploded there.
She had missed her train from Chelmsford in Essex, where she lived, and had to wait for the next one to London.
"It was a matter of minutes," she said.
"I should have been on the train that exploded, and I would have been if I hadn't been late."
O'Neil was there to see the bodies of victims being brought up to street level.
"It did not feel at all real to be watching all this.
"However, people were very helpful.
"I suppose I will realise only later exactly what happened."
Wanted her to come home immediately
O'Neil said she spent "almost the whole of Thursday" on the phone to her mother, who lives in George in the Southern Cape.
"It was a terrible shock for them," said O'Neil.
"Of course, they want me to return to South Africa immediately."
People who have children in London tried in panic to contact them on Thursday.
However, phone networks were overloaded but fortunately many South Africans managed to send home reassuring SMS messages.
Lindi Wessels, 22, of Hillcrest near Durban lives in central London, next to Waterloo station.
Her message said:
"It is a madhouse here.
"The sky is absolutely white and every now and then a few light drops fall from heaven.
"Today is the first day of the G8 conference in Scotland, but it is also the day that made London, its people and visitors aware of the fact that it is vulnerable.
"It really is terrifying."
"Whole business is so scary'
A friend of O'Neil, Mari Vermaak, 26, who lives in Kensington, was equally shocked by the explosions.
"Luckily, Lindi was the only one of my friends who came that close to one of the explosions," she said.
"The whole business is so scary.
"We never hand an inkling anything of this kind ever could happen here."
According to Vermaak, there was a bomb threat last week in Kensington, near where she works.