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'The 7/7 bombings feel like yesterday'

Mary Rhodes
BBC Midlands Today
PA Media A woman with a white burn treatment mask over her face. Paul is clutching her with both of his arms around her. He is wearing a white shirt and has brown hair. He looks distressedPA Media
Former firefighter Paul Dadge helped people at one of the bomb sites in July 2005

A man pictured helping a survivor of the 7/7 bombings in a famous image of the aftermath has said he feels like it "could've been yesterday", 20 years on from the attacks.

Paul Dadge, from Cannock, helped survivors outside Edgware Road Tube Station in 2005.

The photo of him helping a then 25-year-old Davinia Douglass across the road to a makeshift A&E station dominated newspapers and saw him branded a hero.

"Sometimes I struggle with the fact that I wasn't able to help those who lost their lives," he told the BBC.

On 7 July 2005, four suicide bombers with rucksacks full of explosives attacked central London, killing 52 people and injuring hundreds more.

The bomb that exploded at Edgware Road killed six people.

Recalling the events of 20 years ago, former firefighter Mr Dadge had just started a job in Hammersmith and was on his way to work when he came across the scene.

Paul is wearing a white shirt and navy blue suit jacket. He has short white hair and facial hair and is wearing black glasses with a red stripe.
Mr Dadge said the incident changed the course of his life

"There was just a lot of people milling around, and at that point there wasn't really anybody there to help them," he said.

"I just made a conscious decision to help, really, and put people into an area where they could be looked after until more emergency services arrived."

He said it had "without any doubt" changed the course of his life, telling the BBC that he had since become interested in counter-terrorism and politics.

Mr Dadge stood to be Labour MP in the former constituency of Cannock Chase in the 2017 general election, missing out to the Conservatives' Amanda Milling.

Getty Images A picture from the 7th of July 2005 of the Edgeware Road station after the bombings. it is a large building with a dark blue sign displaying its name in white writing. The area in front of it is cordoned off with red and white scene tape. There are two fire engines, several cars and an ambulane parked with people standing on scene.Getty Images
Six people were killed at Edgeware Road station

"In some ways I found it to be quite natural what I did on the 7th of July," he said.

"But on the 8th of July, talking to hundreds of press from around the globe, I found [it] a lot more overfacing than being involved in the terrorist attack itself."

He said he got back on the Tube the following Monday as a "show of defiance", to prove that the nation would carry on.

He is still in contact with Ms Douglass to this day.

"I'm in touch with her and others who weren't in that picture, and it's good to catch up with those people," he said.

"We were quite a close group of people at Edgeware Road, because we all stayed together."

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