Australian's bus ride to hell

By Mark ButtlerJuly 09, 2005
FALLING bodies, blood, screaming and acrid smoke ... Australian Catherine Klestov was sitting right below where the bomb exploded on the top deck of the London bus.Miraculously, the 26-year-old walked from the mangled wreckage in Tavistock Square.

From the hospital bed where she is recovering from cuts and bruises, the recruitment consultant from Queensland gazed at an image of the shattered remains.

"Thank God I wasn't sitting up there. Everyone fell from the top on to us. It was horrible," she said.
"I can't believe it. I am definitely one of the luckiest people."

Ms Klestov, who moved to London in February, normally takes a train to work but found the Underground network was paralysed.

She walked up the steps of Euston station and tried to catch a cab but all were full. She then tapped on the window of a passing bus, trying to get on, but the driver indicated there was no room.

If she had been allowed on board, she would have been safe, as the next bus to pass was the doomed No.30.

Despite it being busy, she was allowed aboard the lower deck and struck up a conversation with a fellow passenger about the "major incident" unfolding on the underground.

"I said 'God, what's going on?' She said there were all sorts of things being said," she recalled.

"A second later, there was the loudest noise you could imagine. I wasn't really sure what happened."

The blast threw her off her feet and on to the floor. Through the smoke, she saw other passengers lying around her, piled on top of each other.

Where the roof had been was the sky, there was screaming.

Almost immediately, the passengers able to walk began scrambling to get out, fearful the bus would catch fire.

"It was smoky and gritty - you could taste it," she said.

Finding herself on the street, she checked herself for injuries and found her arms and legs stained with blood.

"It didn't really register. I just remember screaming at the side of the road, being extremely shaken up," she said.

Passers-by helped her and other passengers into the foyer of a nearby building were they were treated by paramedics. The most serious were then rushed to hospitals.

Ms Klestov told The Daily Telegraph yesterday her feelings of abject shock were now being replaced with "complete anger" at those who would attack innocent people.

"You think, how could they do this. We were just trying to get to work. They picked a peak time," she said.

She said having the support of her sister Elizabeth, who also lives in London, had been an enormous help.

Ms Klestov said she her initial reaction was also to rush back to family in Australia but she has now decided to stay and bravely return to work as soon as she can.

She expects to be released from the Royal Free Hospital in North London later today. But she conceded travelling from Chalk Farm to work at Angel would not be the same.

She said she had contemplated the possibility of a terror attack while riding the tube network and wondered how she would react, never thinking it would happen to her.

"Now, I've just got to face getting back on the tube and the bus," she said.

"I'm going to stay and keep going on with the things I'm doing. I'm extremely lucky to be where I am."

Paying tribute to the emergency services, she said: "Everyone dealt with it exceptionally well."

Back at the family home in Brisbane, her relieved mother Maureen was grateful but astonished her daughter could have survived the carnage.

She had been glued to the news to try to find news about her daughters in London and had four worried hours without information as phone lines went down across the UK capital.

Now she knows her daughter was on the bus, every time she sees footage of it, she shudders.

"I just can't believe it," she said.

"I don't know how she survived that. When you look at that, you think how? She's just so lucky."

She spoke to her daughter yesterday afternoon: "It was a big relief. I told her I loved her and all those sorts of things. Catherine will bounce back.

"She's an absolutely lovely girl with many friends. A lovely, capable young lady. I think she'll be OK."

Officials from the Australian High Commission are trawling through hospitals looking for Australians.

An official said the High Commission had received 1500 inquiries from families trying to track loved ones and urged the more than 100,000 Aussies living in London to call home and allay fears.

Meanwhile, tales of near misses and escapes flood in.

Hamish MacDonald fled Kings Cross station moments after the morning blast to face chaos.
"We were confronted by hundreds of people streaming off the Piccadilly Line service - blood all over their faces, many of them burned," he said.

Oliver Shaw was on a train at Edgware Road when a bomb exploded on the train next to his.

"It was quite horrific and just hearing the shouts and screams of the poor people on the other carriage - it was going to stay with me for quite a while," he said.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15868707-2,00.html