Liverpool bombshell hero stumbles from taxi saying ‘I want my wife, he tried to blow me up’

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Darren Knowles relives the horror of a Memorial Day bomb explosion at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, telling how David Perry stumbled out of his car, blood spurting from his ear and neck and screaming

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Liverpool: Seeing a taxi driver on the sidewalk after a taxi exploded

“Someone blew me up,” the taxi driver who survived the Liverpool attack told rescuers.

Security guard Darren Knowles races to help David Perry after terrorist Emad Al-Swelmin detonates his bomb.

“I just grabbed him and tried to get him to safety,” he said.

Brave security guard Darren desperately tried to see if anyone else could be saved as he helped David, the taxi driver whose car exploded in a Liverpool hospital.

Relived the horror of the Memorial Day explosion, Mr. Knowles, 50, told how the driver stumbled out of his taxi, blood oozing from his ear and neck, as he shouted, “I want my wife.”

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Taxi driver Dave Perry with his wife Rachel

Darren said: “David was very confused and confused.

He was trying to tell us, ‘There’s a passenger, there’s a passenger’.

“I was trying to say to him, ‘Is he still there,’ and he would say, ‘He tried to blow me, he tried to blow me.’

David, 45, got out of the burning car seconds after Iraqi-born terrorist Imad Al-Sweilem, 32, who adopted the name Enzo Almeni after converting to Christianity, blew up his homemade device.

Darren can be seen in his red car as the taxi explodes outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital

Darren was on duty at Liverpool Women’s Hospital when the attacker exploded at 10.59am on Sunday and was standing next to his private car, yards from the main entrance.

He said: It all happened in the blink of an eye. I was just pumping my tires on my car. I saw the taxi stop as they do.

“I heard a loud bang and thought it was a mechanical failure in the taxi. I thought the engine was on fire.

An aerial photo of the aftermath of the explosion in the hospital

picture:

Palestinian Authority)

“But then I saw the taxi driver running out. He was panicked and screaming, ‘Someone blew me up’.”

Darren said blood was bleeding from David’s left ear and from a shrapnel wound in the back of his neck.

He said: “I grabbed him and tried to get him to safety as quickly as possible because I felt like something else was going to explode.

“My first priority was to prevent the taxi driver from getting back into the car, because he had his phone and other things and he wanted to take them out. I took him to the nearest nurse for medical attention.

Brave security guard Darren Knowles desperately tried to see if there was anyone else who could be saved (

picture:

Rowan Griffiths/Daily Mirror)

“I didn’t think to myself I was thinking of getting the taxi driver to safety before boarding anything else.

He was screaming in terror. We’d just say, “Calm down, let’s just see you.”

“I handed him over to a nurse. He walked into the staff entrance and sat there and that was the last I saw of him.”

Darren, who works as an agency security guard, said, “He was in shock. God bless the man. I wish him a speedy recovery.”

Iraqi-born terrorist Imad Al-Sawalim, 32

Darren, who lives with his partner and two of their three children, said, “Everyone calls me a hero but I was just doing my job.”

He said he immediately thought the explosion was a terrorist attack, but “he couldn’t utter the words because we didn’t want to scare people.”

He said he was “absolutely calm” at first but after 30 minutes the reality of what had happened hit him. He said, “My hands were trembling when I realized how close I was to detonating. But you don’t think, you just do it.”

Despite the blast, he continued his shift on Sunday, finished in the middle of the night and returned the next morning to work a shift at another location. He was due to return to the hospital last night for a night shift. He said: At the end of the day I would rather be busy than be busy.

Liam Spencer and his girlfriend Stephanie Stitt (

picture:

Liam Spencer)

A GoFundMe page was set up for Darren and three other men who tried to help, Liam Spencer, Richie Kawar and Will Cowan.

A friend of the father of two, Mr. Kawar, who operated a fire extinguisher in the taxi, said: “One of the audience members shouted, ‘There’s someone in the back of the cab.'” Rich thought because she was outside the Women’s Hospital it must have been a pregnant woman or a baby.

“He said it was too hot to go near him and he could hear a bang and a bang but he still used an extinguisher to try to put it out.”

Carolyn Hewitt, who created the fundraising page, wrote: “These guys Darren Knowles, William Spencer, Ritchie Kawar and Will Cowan, risked their lives on Sunday. I created the gofundme page to raise money to be shared among the four to give them their courage.”

Police have removed a burnt Ford Focus taxi today.

A source said, “Nothing was left of the car. Even the hospital was damaged. They found severe damage, missing windows, and cracked windows.”

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