ON THE FRONT LINE

T ube worker Olaniyi Falayi found a scene of horror after a bomb exploded on an Underground train near Aldgate station. Olaniyi was at Tower Hill station waiting on the platform to get to work when he heard the blast and raced to the scene just minutes after the device went off and was one of the first on the scene. "It was just carnage everywhere, blood everywhere. It was horrible," he said. He joined other workers and emergency staff helping the injured out by walking down the tunnel to where the wrecked train had come to a halt. "When we got to the train we saw bodies on the tracks and a lot of wounded. "We saw the damaged carriage. There were still people in the carriage screaming. "We were able to calm them down," he said. Workers marshalled passengers down to the end of the train where they could get off. At that point Olaniyi radioed the station supervisor: "Send the paramedics down here. There are people dying on the train." He and the other workers sent walking wounded up the tracks to the station in groups of four or five to lean on each other as they made their way out. Olaniyi spent more than an hour underground helping people out of the carriages, some of whom were lifted away on makeshift stretchers. "When I first got to the damaged train I think I just lost all feelings. I just went numb. It was hours after that before I started feeling anything." It was when he went into St Botolph's Church next door, where people were being looked after, when the realisation of what had happened came to him. "I was really devastated. I shed tears. I was shaking and crying." Olaniyi went back to work the next day to make sure his colleagues were all right and throw himself back into the job. Asked if he was a hero, he said: "Not at all. There was no way I would see myself as a hero. "I have been trained in evacuation by the London Underground. That is just what I do. That is my job,” he said. RMTnews :: july/august 2005 12 T ube train operator Jeff Porter describes himself as the “luckiest man alive” after leading over 1,000 commuters to safety following the bomb blast at Edgware Road on July 7. Jeff, a Tube driver of 18 years’ experience and a longstanding RMT activist, was driving a Circle Line service running alongside the train carrying the bomb, which killed seven passengers. As he neared the station, the train carrying the bomb left the station in the opposite direction in the double-width tunnel. The first carriage had passed by when the device detonated halfway along the second carriage. As the blast tore along the tunnel and engulfed his cab, the toughened glass windscreen shattered when it was hit by debris. Jeff said everything went quiet until the cries of help began. “My passengers started banging on the door behind me. I opened it and the carriage was full of smoke and dust. “I told everyone to stay where they were and nobody moved. They were remarkably calm,” he said. Jeff then run up the tunnel towards the station and shouted to uniformed staff for assistance. “The staff were brilliant. They all came down to help without a second thought. “I went through the train telling everyone to keep calm, we would get everyone off as soon as possible but there was an emergency,” he explained. Jeff could not get through to the control room on his radio or telephone and when he looked at the bombed carriage there was nothing above the seats. “So I said to the guys go back and get help. It’s bad, there are people dead,” he said. Jeff stayed with his train until everyone was off and emerged after more than an hour and called his wife Christine and their daughter Natasha, who is a District Line driver and had been following events from Barking Station. Jeff has long been active in the union. He was assistant secretary of Stratford No 1 branch and has been both a rep and a health and safety rep at various times and was Hammersmith and City branch secretary from its inception in 1996 until 2002. He is also a Labour councillor. Train operators Jeff Porter and Ray Wright and station assistants Helen Long and Olaniyi Falaiyi were just some of the many RMT members and Tube workers that played a key role in saving lives following the terrible bomb attacks on July 7. Here are their stories ON THE FRO Olaniyi: ‘Just doing my job’ Driver leads over 1,000 passengers to safety Olaniyi Falaiyi