Gwent man who lost both legs in 7/7 bombings will mark 10th anniversary in London

Daniel Biddle, 36, of Abergavenny suffered appalling injuries when the Tube train blast at Edgware Road station catapulted him through the carriage doors and onto the track.

Fifty-two people died in four separate attacks on that day.

And today Tube announcements will be halted and buses brought to a standstill during a minute’s silence to mark the 10th anniversary of the 7 July 7 bombings.

The national silence will take place at 11.30am BST during a service at St Paul’s Cathedral, and will be observed across the capital’s public transport network.

The Duke of York will attend the service with survivors of the attack.

Relatives of those who died, members of the emergency services and the London Mayor will also be present at the cathedral.

Recalling the events of that morning Mr Biddle said: “On the morning of July 7, 2005, I was going to ring in sick because I had a really bad migraine, but I went back to sleep and woke up an hour later feeling better than I did. I decided to go into work. By the time I left home, I was already an hour and a half behind my normal schedule.

“I jumped on a bus to go to Watford Station. Normally I would have bought my travel card beforehand, but hadn’t that day. The automated machine was broken, so I had to queue up with the other commuters, which delayed me even further. I took the fast train to Liverpool Street, but unfortunately it wasn’t so quick because there was a signal failure at Stratford.

“I got off the train at Liverpool Street Station. My normal routine would be to get a coffee, sandwich and newspaper and go to the circle line to get my train to Baker Street and change for the Bakerloo line to Wembley Central.”

He then said that because he was running late he texted work but having made a mess of the message missed his stop.

“We pulled into Edgware Road, there was a young Asian fella sitting next to where I was standing.

“As we went into the tunnel, I looked down at him, he looked at me, he then reached into his bag and detonated a home-made bomb.

[The Asian man was the terror plot's ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan.]

“There was a big white flash and a huge explosion and the kind of noise you get when you tune a radio in. It felt like the carriage I was in expanded at a fast rate and then contracted quickly. And with that it blew me off my feet and through the carriage doors into the tunnel. I landed in the space between the tunnel wall and the track.

"When I woke up on the tracks I was pinned down by a piece of carriage door or panel, my first thought was that I had fallen out of the train. I landed in the space between the tunnel wall and the track.

He recalls trying to move and but couldn't, and as the dust and smoke settled and the noises started, he realised "something bad had happened".

He said: "My arms and face were set on fire. I was terrified, seeing what I had seen, and thought I was going to die. So I was screaming just as loud as I could to get help."

Mr Biddle’s left leg had been taken clean off at the thigh. His right leg was severed at the knee but still attached and shattered the bones to the point they came through the skin.

“My arms and face were set on fire I had multiple lacerations and bits of metal sticking out of me. I was fully conscious while trapped for about an hour and a half before the emergency services got me out.”

A fellow passenger who showed immense bravery to get Mr Biddle.

“Adrian Heili was absolutely unbelievable in what he did to keep me alive. Adrian was on the other side of the train. When I was screaming for help, he was shouting back to me. He bumped into an off-duty train driver and asked him if the tracks were live.

“Adrian told him I was badly hurt and he needed to get to me so he dropped to his knees shut his eyes and grabbed the track. A heroic move, which very quickly could have ended his own life.

“He then crawled under the train to get to me and lifted the metal work off me. He could see I had severed my left leg and the artery and was losing a lot of blood quickly.

“He forced his hand into what was left of the stump and pinched the artery shut and we sat like that for an hour and 25 minutes. “ The paramedics later said Mr Biddle was a minute away from bleeding to death.

“Adrian was severely hurt but went back into the tunnel and helped get other people out. “ “He won the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery and has become one of my best friends and biggest hero.

“I was taken to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, where I suffered several cardiac arrests and was brought back to life before being taken into theatre. I had my spleen removed and had a lacerated liver, kidneys failed and I was on dialysis for two weeks. One of my lungs doesn’t work properly.

I am deaf on one side and have a prosthetic eye.

“Surgeons had to remove house keys and about £7.40 worth of pound coins and 10p and 20p pieces embed - ded by the blast. One 20p piece remains lodged in my thigh-bone. Four hours into surgery, I had a massive cardiac arrest. The surgeon had to open my chest and put his hands in and manually pump my heart back to life.

“I spent eight weeks in a medically-induced coma.

During that time, I had multiple operations just to keep me alive and lost 87 pints of blood. I was on a life-support machine for eight weeks and when I came out of the coma, I was in intensive care for four weeks and then in hospital and a rehabilitation hospital for 51 weeks.

“It makes me the worst-injured survivor from all four attacks as well as the longest hospital stay out of the four bombings. It’s not a claim to fame that I wanted, but it’s one that got stuck with me.

“I knew I wanted to go back to work and it would be a big part of my recovery, but that it wouldn’t be feasible to go back to work on a building site in a wheelchair.

“I came across the national register of access consultants on my laptop and very quickly realised that my construction knowledge and disability put me in a good place to find a career in that.

I retrained and in Decem - ber 2007,became a fully accredited consultant for the National Register of Access Consultants and a member of the Chartered Institute of Building.

“In December 2008, I was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for my work on social inclusion.

“I got married in 2007, but unfortunately it didn’t work out as I had hoped and later divorced. I had a nervous breakdown as a result of the post-traumatic stress disorder and a lack of support and understanding.

“I met my fiancée, Gem Morgan, purely by accident.

We had been friends on Facebook for about five years after I got a friend request from her by accident in 2009, but we never interacted with each other until 2013 when I wished her daughter well after a fall. In September 2013, I visited Gem in Wales and we began our relationship.

“With her love and support, I have rebuilt my life and we are inseparable and neither of us would have it any other way. When I acquired a disability my life changed forever, but just because you’re disabled it doesn’t mean you can’t do things. The perception of disability is the biggest stumbling block yet my inspiration and goals are no different to anyone else’s.

“Using my construction background and qualification as an access consultant and surveyor, we have since set up Nationwide Access Consultants Ltd. Its aim is to help organisations be more accessible for the disabled and deal with the legalities of the Equality Act 2010.

“It’s a one-stop shop for all issues relating to disability and physical access, and works with the NHS, retailers and hotels to make their buildings more accessible.

“I am very lucky to still be alive and want to make disability more acceptable in society.”

He added: “You never know what’s around the corner. I didn’t get on a tube train on July 7 and expect to lose my legs that day. It comes from nowhere. My life went from being very open to being very insular very quickly and it has been a fight to get back to what most people would consider ‘normality’.

“I don’t want people to for - get what happened and for me it should be remembered for the people that were killed and their families, but for me I don’t want to be the reminder to everybody of what 7/7 is.

“I want to get on with my life and take my business forward. 7/7 is part of me but it’s not all that I am.

“I’m very lucky to be alive and it would be a huge injustice to the victims’ families if I didn’t do something with this opportunity I have been given.”

HOW DAY OF HORROR UNFOLDED:

7.15am: Four men – Mohammed Sidique Khan, aged 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and 19-year-old Jermaine Lindsay, all wearing rucksacks, were captured on CCTV entering Luton railway station.

Lindsay had met the other three at Luton, they having travelled overnight by car from Leeds.

7.40am: The quartet boarded a train for London King’s Cross.

8.23am: On their arrival at King’s Cross, they made for the London Underground system. Minutes later, Khan boarded a Circle Line train heading west, Tanweer boarded a train heading east on the same line, and Lindsay boarded a southbound Piccadilly Line train.

Hussain was spotted on CCTV appearing to walk towards the Piccadilly Line entrance, but was next seen a little more than half an hour later leaving King’s Cross underground station on foot.

8.50am: Three bombs exploded inside a minute on London Underground trains.

Shehzad Tanweer blew himself up seconds after the eastbound Circle Line train left Liverpool Street station, killing himself and seven other people, and injuring 171.

Mohammed Sidique Khan blew himself up on the westbound Circle Line train at Edgware Road station, killing himself and six other people, and injuring 163.

Jermaine Lindsay blew himself up between King’s Cross and Russell Square stations, killing 27 people including himself, and injuring more than 340.

8.55am: Hasib Hussain emerged from King’s Cross, trying unsuccessfully to contact the other three.

9.47am: Hussain - believed to have travelled by bus to Euston, from where he boarded a number 30 bus – blew himself up on the latter at Tavistock Square, killing himself and 13 other people, and injuring more than 110.