WATCH NOW: 7/7 bombings survivor Dan Biddle recalls horrific ordeal 20 years on - 'I thought I was going to die'
GB News
The coordinated attacks on July 7 2005 claimed 52 lives and left more than 770 people injured
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A survivor of the 7/7 bombings has recalled his horrific ordeal 20 years on, telling GB News he believed he was "going to die".
Dan Biddle sat down with Breakfast hosts Eamonn Holmes and Ellie Costello as he marked 20 years since the suicide bomb attacks took place.
Biddle was in touching distance of attacker Mohammad Sidique Khan when the bomb went off, which blew him out of the train carriage and onto the tracks.
Among the 52 people claimed in the four attacks that day, train passengers David Foulkes, 22, Jennifer Nicholson, 24, Laura Webb, 29, Jonathan Downey, 34, Colin Morley and Michael Brewster, both 52 were killed, but Biddle survived.
7/7 bombings survivor Dan Biddle recalled his experience of the horrific attack in Edgware Road train station
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Reflecting on the impact of the attack 20 years on, Biddle said: "It's still really surreal, it's still a kind of strange thought to realise I was in right in the middle of what happened that day, and even though it's 20 years, it still feels like yesterday.
"The pain and the emotional torment that goes with that is just as fresh now as when it just happened."
Recalling his interaction with the bomber in his train carriage, Biddle told GB News: "I think the most terrifying thing about it is just how calm he was. There wasn't a hesitation when he reached for the bag.
"When he was looking at me, it was as if he was looking through me, and it was all very calculated because he leant forward and looked along the carriage.
"When I was interviewed by the anti-terrorist squad a few months later, they basically said he was looking to see where the biggest group of people were in the train. So it was a very evil, calculated act."
He added: "But there was no fear, there was no hesitation. And the most scariest thing of all was he just looked like everybody else, there wasn't anything about him that I would look at and say he looks like a terrorist.
"There was no screaming or shouting or anything like that, it was just a very calm action, and he was out of the picture. And I had to live the rest of my life with the consequences of what he did."
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Telling GB News of his horrific injuries, Biddle recounted another victim of the bombings coming to his rescue in the train tunnel and saving his life.
Biddle explained: "From the train that I was on when the bomb went off, I'm the only one that survived.
"They killed everybody around me, and that's incredibly tough to live with, to know that you survived something that everybody around you didn't.
"I was pretty much laying in and amongst dead bodies and body parts for about an hour and 40 minutes before I was taken out the tunnel.
"I was stood next to the bomber when the bomb went off, and it blew me through the train door and then bounced back into the crawl space between the tunnel wall and the track, and I thought I was going to die.
"I just started screaming for help, and I just heard this very deep South African accent shout back at me 'what's your name?', and I didn't know if he was talking to me or somebody else, but I thought, I'm just going to answer it and hope for the best."
Biddle continued: "So I shouted 'it's Dan', and he said, my name is Adrian, keep talking and I'll find you.
"Adrian was on the other side, so he had to crawl underneath the train to come out the other side.
"He was quite badly hurt as well, he had a severely lacerated head, he'd dislocated his shoulder and broke two ribs, so actually put his shoulder back in place before he crawled under the train to get to me. A truly remarkable human being.
Biddle told GB News that it is 'incredibly tough' to live with the aftermath of the attack
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"My left leg was blown clean off, and I severed the femoral artery.
"My right leg from the knee down had been blown around 180 degrees, so when Adrian found me, he basically said to me, I'm not going to let you down, this is really going to hurt, and he wasn't wrong because he basically forced his hand into what was left of the leg, found the artery and pinched it shut."
Reflecting on how he is turning "trauma into triumph" in writing a book about his experience, Biddle concluded that he is "incredibly lucky" to "have a chance at life".
Biddle stated: "The issues I've had with complex PTSD and depression and the impact that's had on my life, I wanted to do something to kind of hopefully give a little bit of hope, and I coined the phrase turning trauma into triumph to go from where I was 20 years ago and the horrendous state I was in to where I am now.
"And life isn't easy, I really do struggle with my PTSD, but I'm still here. I'm still incredibly lucky to have a chance at a life, so I wanted to write a book to hopefully for somebody that's struggling to read that and think there is a way through with the right support and the right people, I can potentially come through the other side of it."
Back From the Dead: The Untold Story of the 7/7 Bombings by Dan Biddle with Douglas Thompson (Mirror Books, £20) is out now.