London terror attack: Woman ‘flipped off bridge’, pulled alive from Thames amid Westminster carnage

BLOODIED victims were left scattered along Westminster Bridge after the London attacker sent them “flying like footballs”, witnesses say.

WARNING: Graphic content

AS THE London attacker’s car hurtled towards them, people on Westminster Bridge people ran for their lives.

Some of the at least 20 victims barely had any time to react as the atrocity unfolded.

Tourists, including schoolchildren, mixed with locals on the bridge — an iconic vantage point for many to take pictures of Big Ben — but today it is a bridge stained with blood.

The London Port Authority confirmed a woman had been pulled alive from the River Thames, while others on the bridge had vicious head wounds.

Horrified rescuers could see blood in the water around the injured woman.

Images show people lying on the ground, people huddled around them, with blood flowing from their wounds.

London Ambulance director of operations Pauline Cranmer said 12 seriously injured patients were rushed to hospital, while eight others were treated at the scene.

A witness to the bridge horror told the BBC people were landing “in the middle of the road” after being hit.

A witness to the London terror attack, Ismail, told the BBC: ‘People were flying like footballs.’

Paramedics treat an injured person after an incident on Westminster Bridge in London. Picture: Toby Melville

A bloodied hand emerges as a person is treated at the scene outside the Houses of Parliament in London. Picture: AP

A boat worker and fire crews retrieve an unknown object from the Thames under Westminster Bridge. Picture: Jamie Lorriman

“Everything was normal ... And then there were people flying like footballs. I feel sorry for one gentleman, I don’t know what happened to him. It’s not something I’d like to witness every day,” said the man identified only by his first name, Ismail.

He didn’t see the attacker and it took him about 30 seconds to realise the incident was “more than a hit-and-run”.

“Taking a group of people and to keep going back — then that is a crime against humanity.”

Ismail’s mind immediately turned to similar incidents in Germany when he saw a man flying through the air and land in the middle of the road.

“I feel sick..Sick. I'm still shaking,” he told reporters.

Cops confirmed the incident was being treated as a “terrorist attack” amid reports the driver then stabbed a cop before being gunned down, The Sun reported.

Emergency services staff provide medical attention to injured people on the south side of Westminster Bridge, close to the Houses of Parliament in London. Picture: AP

Two policemen stand guard at a cordoned-off area on the way to the Houses of Parliament in central London. Picture: AP

“I was just walking up to Parliament just about to walk in the steps,” a witness said.

“I wasn’t looking when it happened but I saw the aftermath. (The driver) just went on the pavement and trampled a lot of people.

“There was a woman at the top of the steps, her head was just pulsing with blood and bleeding out and there was another woman who flipped over the side of the bridge. Someone landed in the river somewhere.

“From what I could tell I think they got that person because I saw cops on a ferry. She was not in a good state and there were a load of bodies on the road.”

Injured people are assisted after a car mowed down pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge. Picture: Reuters

British police shot a suspected attacker outside the Houses of Parliament in London after an officer was stabbed in what police said was a terrorist incident. Picture: AFP/ James West

Eyewitness Rick Longley also described the attack to the Press Association.

“We were just walking up to the station and there was a loud bang and a guy, someone, crashed a car and took some pedestrians out.

“They were just laying there and then the whole crowd just surged around the corner by the gates just opposite Big Ben.

“A guy came past my right shoulder with a big knife and just started plunging it into the policeman. I have never seen anything like that. I just can’t believe what I just saw.”

Jayne Wilkinson, also told the Press Association she had seen the drama unfold.

“We were taking photos of Big Ben and we saw all the people running towards us, and then there was an Asian guy in about his 40s carrying a knife about seven or eight inches long.

“And then there were three shots fired, and then we crossed the road and looked over. The man was on the floor with blood.

“He had a lightweight jacket on, dark trousers and a shirt. He was running through those gates, towards Parliament, and the police were chasing him.”

Rob Smith was running past Westminster when he said he saw the drama unfold.

“(The) grey Hyundai car came across the bridge then across the cycle lane, hit a man on a bike and drive into the wall gates,” he said.

“Police ran straight out and shot him. I think there was another person but I can’t be sure.”

He said that officers had been drawing their guns as they ran out.

Poland’s former foreign minister Radek Sikorski said he was in a taxi leaving Westminster and was checking his email when he heard something like a car crash, “something like a car hitting metal sheet”.

“I look up and I see that a person is lying on the pavement. I started my camera and I saw more people lying on the street and on the pavement,” Sikorski said on Poland’s TVN24.

“People started running up to them. I saw one person who gave no sign of life, another man was bleeding from his head.

“In all, I saw five people who were at least seriously injured,” he said.

“The taxi driver immediately called the emergency number. I heard ambulances within two or three minutes, so the rescue action was really very quick. There is a hospital near there.

“It all happened so fast that there was no time to get scared,” said Sikorski who posted his video on Twitter.

Emergency personnel gather around a body on the southside of Westminster Bridge, where pedestrians were mowed down at random. Picture: ITN via AP

A woman lies injured on Westminster Bridge in London. Pictures: REUTERS/Toby Melville

A woman was reportedly flipped off the bridge and into the water as chaos ensued. Picture: AFP / Joel Ford

Steve Voake, 55, was walking across the Westminster Bridge towards the South Bank when he saw the aftermath.

He said he saw at least two bodies lying on the road and one in the water.

“I saw a trainer lying in the road and when I looked more closely I saw that there were a couple of bodies the other side of the road,” he told the Press Association.

“And when I looked over the side there was another body lying in the water with blood all around it.”

Eyewitness Rob Lyon, 34, from Rugby, who works in marketing, said: “I heard a wheel definitely hit a kerb and quite a large crunch noise, I looked up and saw a car clearly hitting people as it came towards me.

“A colleague I was with, I heard him shout but I just instinctively jumped off the pavement and I could see people getting hit.

“Then the car just carried on up the bridges and I just looked around me in shock. I just saw people being hit by a car at speed, it was harrowing. I just sort of went into shock mode.

“I just looked around me and couldn’t really work out what had happened. I was numb it felt like I was in the middle of a Hollywood movie, you see these things but suddenly I was in the middle of it.

“My first thought is I wanted to tell my wife I was okay and my children. Then I wanted to check a lady I was near and I gave her coat as a pillow and waited with her.

“I called the emergency services I think I was one of the first to do so and waited with her. I couldn’t see the driver. I saw it come up onto the kerb and then just drive straight.

An injured man sits covered with a blanket as emergency services staff provide medical attention to injured people on the south side of Westminster Bridge. Picture: AP

Originally published as London terror attack: Woman ‘flipped off bridge’, pulled alive from Thames amid Westminster carnage